In a recent breakout session at the Progressive Education Network (PEN) conference held at Wickliffe Progressive in Columbus, Ohio, one of the participants asked the group for a resource to help them learn more about progressive education’s defining characteristics and essential features. While no one in the room wanted to offer “a single fixed definition”–which, as Alfie Kohn (2015) explains, is “fitting in light of [the movement’s] reputation for resisting conformity and standardization” (p.2)–everyone did agree that a collection of progressive education definitions would be helpful for the work ahead. This blog is a small attempt to get started on such a resource, but is by no means finished or complete. It is a definite work in progress!

Established in 1919, the Progressive Education Association was a networked group of individuals who were dedicated to the spread of progressive education in American public schools up until 1955. This included expanding the reach of progressive education philosophy and pedagogy and engaging members in critical discussions about the social and political issues of the day. Eugene Randolph Smith was the first PEA president, and he helped to put into writing the overall objectives of the Association. 

In 1937, Louisa Palmer wrote to the Hanahau’oli School community:

Progressive education..is a moving, dynamic, changing education – not a theory or a system proved and therefore static, but a living thing, growing, continuously having to change because of the three great changing elements with which we deal – children, environment and civilization or culture. This should not indicate instability or following fads, nor change of fundamental principles. But it does indicate a readiness to accept a new viewpoint when the need for it arises; it does indicate watching life and children alertly – not passively as so much former education has done (Palmer, 1937).

In a previous blog post, I introduced readers to H.S. Townsend, Hawai‘i’s Inspector General of Schools from 1896 - 1900, and the tremendous contributions he made to the progressive education movement in Hawai‘i and beyond. This included sharing about Townsend’s The Progressive Educator newspaper, which was distributed monthly from 1893-1899, “one for every teacher of printed record in the Hawaiian Islands” (p.30). At the time, the newspaper provided cutting edge progressive education articles and resources. It also served as a foundation for the “Teachers’ Reading Clubs,” which were established “in nearly [every] school district” (p.31) across the nation. Townsend’s strategy was to provide educators with stimulating content that was both philosophically and practically relevant to their work in schools, and then the teachers could apply what they read to the development of their own progressive philosophy and pedagogy as they implemented new practices in their schools and classrooms and engaged in meaningful professional discussion and reflection with their colleagues. There is no doubt that Townsend’s little but mighty newspaper transformed public education in Hawai‘i at the time it was in circulation.

In this blog, I aim to share more about Henry Schuller (H.S.) Townsend. He was one of Hawai‘i’s leading American progressive educators who was “expected to be appointed the first superintendent of public instruction as soon as the territorial government was established” (Hunt, 1969, p. 297), but who was ousted from the position in 1900 because of the “aggressive Americanization campaign…[implemented in the] territory’s public schools” (Americanization through the school system, 2023). I was first introduced to Townsend while researching the chronology of public education leadership in Hawai‘i during the Kingdom, Republic, and Territorial time periods (see the chart below). 

There are many important voices who have shaped and continue to shape the ongoing progressive education movement. For example, the quotes from John Dewey and George Herbert Mead–written into a Hanahau'oli School brochure published in 1919–are as relevant today as they were when the pamphlet was first printed. Listed under a section of the brochure titled, “Aim and General Methods,” the words of Dewey and Mead frame the overall philosophy and pedagogy of the school at its founding. They serve as a foundation, or starting point from which the architects of the school’s original design could lean on and build off of as they “tried new methods and broke with the stilted formal type of instruction which was common at that time” (Cooke, 1964, p. 79).

In this final musing on the many thought-provoking questions posed at the Modern Progressive Education Panel Discussion for Human Restoration Project’s first ever Conference to Restore Humanity! (view a complete recording of our discussion online here), let us examine the ways the progressive education movement has grown between the early 1900s and today. Human Restoration Project’s Chris McNutt posed the following questions to Josh Reppun, ambassador for WhatSchoolCouldBe.org, Brendan McCarthy, a scholar-in-residence in the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Progressive Philosophy and Pedagogy graduate program, and myself. What are the driving factors behind the growth of the modern progressive education movement? What is different in a modern progressive education versus that of the past? How is it expanding today?

In my October 2, 2022 post on the Progressive Philosophy and Pedagogy Blog, I shared one of many engaging questions posed to me at the recent Modern Progressive Education Panel Discussion for Human Restoration Project’s first ever Conference to Restore Humanity! (View a complete recording of our discussion online here.) Organized by Human Restoration Project’s Chris McNutt and including the perspectives of Josh Reppun, ambassador for WhatSchoolCouldBe.org, and Brendan McCarthy, a scholar-in-residence in the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Progressive Philosophy and Pedagogy graduate program, this conversation continues to stimulate wonderings for me today.

In 1949, a group of progressive educators asked, “What is best for children?” and a group of parents pondered, “What education do our children deserve?” Their questions gave birth to Westland School over 70 years ago. They were risk takers, passionate in their hopes for a better world, and certain that this world could begin by educating their children in a humanistic, democratic way. They understood that youngsters displayed an innate joy of freedom in learning and were certain that a mode of education existed that could retain and heighten the pleasure of mastery while simultaneously instilling values and a feeling of responsibility to the class, the school, the community, and the world. During the time of Joseph McCarthy, Westland became a safe haven for children and spouses whose fathers and husbands were sent to jail for refusing to speak before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Today, Westland is a modern safe haven, an institution where democracy is practiced, where communicating across differences is encouraged, and where community is integral.

Visionary founder of Hull-House, a Chicago-based settlement house established in 1889, Jane Addams was critical to the development of the American progressive education movement. Vehemently "against a restricted view of education” (Addams, 1910, p. 51), Addams built Hull-House to meet the needs of the community it served and expand traditional notions of schooling by including innovative social, educational, and artistic programs. Philosophically aligned to other pragmatists of the time, she believed that education should not be "disconnected from the ultimate test of the conduct it inspired" (Addams, 1910, p.46).