Evening star., 1948-09-25
More on Progressive Education


Curriculum Improvement in Montgomery
County, have read with great deal Of In
terest your many letters on the subject. One
of the more recent ones, that Of Mrs. Mildred
Wells, in the September q edition, moves me
to comment
Mrs. Wells in her defense of progressive
education, resorts to the practices Of all Of its
proponents and. am sorry to say, some Of its
critics. that of making broad, general state
ments and claims as facts and asking us to
believe that because she has said so, 1t must
be so. Her statement that children taught
under the progressive method learn more"
and are better disciplined, better balanced.
and more effective individuals" than those
taught under a more traditional method has
nothing to substantiate it but her belief In it.
I could say as emphatically that believe the
opposite, and we would have accomplished
nothing. Such debates soon degenerate into
an II am"-"You are not" type of argument
and convince no one.
Mrs. Wells cites as proof of the superiority
of progressive education the Eight-Year Study
sponsored by the Progressive Education Asso-
citation. In reality. the results of that study
were very disappointing to many of the pro-
gressive educators.
The progressive educators theme, as Mrs.
Wells says, is that "the information and skills
that we need Gin order) to live effectively
should be learned in the process of living ef-
fectively rather than in a prearranged and
predigested logical manner" In other words,
whatever a child learns of facts and skills
should not be presented to him as such-facts
to be learned-but they should be only those
facts which he feels the need of in his process
of living effectively in school. This makes
the childs principal function in school Giving
effectively" and whatever knowledge he gains
in the process is the by-product of such living.
Where Parents League Differs.
I would like to point out that 1t is right
here where we of the Parents League diner
from the progressive educators. We 1eel tnat
the primary purpose of elementary education
is to equip child with the facts and Skllls
that he will need to use in high school, college
and in later life Of course, he must develop
right attitudes, good habits and all the moral
virtues, but we believe they are the concomi-
tants of good schooling and not the primary
obiectives Teaching a child to be an effective
individual is the three-fold responsibility OF
the home, the church and the school, and is
a necessary by-product of good schooling, just
as teamwork and good sportsmanship are the
by-products of athletic competition.
From what she tells us of her background,
it is evident that Mrs. Wells has been
teacher in secondary schools and colleges and
not in elementary schools. She speaks OF
children coming to her classes not highly
skilled in the three RS, and what she says can
be applied quite successfully in some cases to
senior high school and college levels. but dis
tinctly is above the elementary school level
| 1t is when the educators, as they do in Mont
gomery County, take the tenets of progressive
| education that are applicable with some sue
cess in higher education and apply them to
| teaching little children in elementary educa-
ton, that the system breaks down. Mrs. Wells
| goes on to say that "it is more important to
| reconstruct the facts of history around their
| meaning for us in 1948 than it Is to memorize
| the facts" Here again she is speaking on
| high school or college level, for we don't want
| or expect our children to be miniature adults
| at 10 or IL years of age, trying to evaluate
| ls48 in terms of history. We want them to
| learn the facts of their country's history so
| well that when they are 10 or 20 or older they
| will have sound basis OF facts on which TO
| base their evaluations.
Children Need Guidance.
OF course, a child should be encouraged to
make decisions and to use his own judgment,
but let it be within his own sphere, on child's
| level child needs and expects close and
| constant guidance on the important things i'll
his early life. He has a much greater feeling
| of security when he gets it than when he
| knows that many of the major decisions are
| up to him. That is one reason we are opposed
| to system that leaves so great portion OF
! the decision for what child studies and how
| intensively he studies it in the childs own
| hands Not only is the subject matter in most
| cases very inadequately covered, but the child
is left with feeling that he is over his depth.
| he Is foundering.
| We agree with Mrs. Wells that it is much
| more important to be intelligently critical of
what you read than it is merely to read; that
| 1t is much more important to act in accord
ance with your knowledge than it is merely
| to know. But we maintain that one must be
able to read before he can be intelligently
critical of any reading matter; and that he
must know before he can act on such knowl-
edge. And that is why we want the emphasis
placed, in the early years, on learning facts
and skills, 50 a child can act on what he has
learned. MIRIAM SHERW1N.
! To the Editor of The Star:
| The letter in defense of the progressive
| system" of education published in The Star
on September 81 has become part of scrap
book have been keeping on matters pertaining
| to education, particularly elementary-s school
| education (where the twig is benD. This
scrap book is quite revealing: Whereas par
ents and many business and professional
| people over the country are questioning the
| quality of our progressive" educational meth
| ods, certain segment of our professional
educators assiduousy is promoting these meth
| DDS against all odds in a very able and shrewd
| fashion.
| 1t would appear from my clippings that
professional guidance in progressive rebuttals
to parent-critics stems from such publications
as the Educators Dispatch, published by A. G.
| Croft, with Offices in Washington and New
| York. Another article in my scrap book tells
| me that when the progressive educational
| system was first mapped out at Teachers
| College, Columbia University Prof Harold