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Progressive Education National Conference (San Francisco - October 5, 2007)
Tom Little
Park Day School
Good morning, and welcome to San Francisco and the 2007 Progressive Education National Conference. We are so delighted that folks from around the country have joined us for these three days. In the house this morning we have representatives from across the educational spectrum, from preschool, and elementary, to secondary and higher education. There are public and private school educators from every region of the United States, and participants from Canada and Australia. Present today are teachers, administrators, and educators from an array of roles in schools, associations and agencies from near and far. Look around and see for yourselves, progressive educators you are not alone. You are not alone.
My name is Tom Little, and I am the Director of Park Day School, in Oakland, and on behalf of the Progressive Education Network Steering Committee, I warmly welcome you today with the hope that you will see that you are not alone; that you will make wonderful new and enduring connections, that you will be inspired; and, of course, that you will have lots of fun in this beautiful city.
You might not be aware, but San Francisco can lay claim to a significant piece of Progressive education history. In 1899, Frederic Burk was named the founding President of the new San Francisco State Normal School, devoted to teacher education. Dr. Burk chose as the motto of the school, “experentia docet,” which means “experience teaches,” a worthy guide for progressive educators. Prior to W.W. I, San Francisco State Normal School, which became San Francisco State Teachers College, and today San Francisco State University, gained wide recognition as a center of progressive education. At the Normal School, Burk mentored Carleton Washburn, who became the superintendent of the Winnetka Illinois public schools. They were both critics of the lock-step K-12 educational systems which were common at the time, and Washburn exported to Winnetka Burk’s “individual instruction method,” which allowed students to work at their own pace. Of course, Winnetka has become perhaps one of the staunchest on-going example of progressive practice. I like to think of them as the county seat of progressive education, and there are representatives here today from almost all of the Winnetka Schools.
The great educator and philosopher Maxine Green, heroine and mentor to legions of teachers, uses the metaphor of standing on the shoulders of those who came before her. As a long time member of the faculty at Teachers College, she talks about standing on the shoulders of her own mentors, Lawrence Cremin, William Kilpatrick, and John Dewey. Around the room today, and on the screen behind me, are reminders of educators from the past, and organizers of past progressive education conferences, upon whose shoulders we stand in organizing this conference in 2007. The members of the Progressive Education Network steering committee realize that this conference is only one in a long and rich history of gatherings to examine educational policy and practice. We nod respectfully to those who have come before us, and humbly stand on their shoulders.
Our current group of seven planners first met and conspired in 2005, at the Progressive Ed. conference at The School in Rose Valley. You might have seen us wearing this pin which reads, „What if…could be,“ which was the motto of the conference at Rose Valley. At that time, we promised to gather again in San Francisco in 2007. And here we are. As you can imagine, organizing this conference has taken a great deal of effort, and I would like to recognize the folks on the steering committee. We call ourselves the PEN 7, and we represent both public and private schools from coast to coast. We are Lisa Shapiro, from the Galloway School in Georgia. John Pecore, from Georgia State University in Atlanta. Terry Strand, from Green Acres School in Washington, D.C., Kate McLellan, from Hubbard Woods School in Winnetka, Illinois, Maureen Cheever, also from Hubbard Woods School in Winnetka, And, locally, Head of the Peninsula School in Menlo Park, Katy Dalgleish.
Thirty-two years ago, the great educator Lillian Weber, one of the matriarchs of the Open Education movement, hosted a conference such as this in New York City, called the Roots of Open Education. It was a gathering of 500 people from all over the country at a time when Progressive Education was once again getting some traction in the educational community. It was 1975 and only eight years after the Plowden Report was released in Britain, and these educators came together and were reminded of the early influences on progressive education. They heard speakers talk about settlement houses, worker’s education in cities, one room rural schools, early kindergarten and day-care programs, folk schools, WPA schools, and the early schools, so well chronicled in Lawrence Cremin’s 1964 classic history, The Transformation of the Schools.
Lillian Weber wrote of that conference, “This was not simply a nostalgia trip. Its evocation of the past was organized with the idea of confirming the continuity of those strands in our national life that encouraged self-development. The conference hoped to reaffirm the humanist wellspring of America.“ So they remembered the work and accomplishments Lucy Sprague Mitchell, Marietta Johnson, Charlotte Winsor, Jane Addams, Horace Mann, Carlton Washburn, William Kilpatrick, Frances W. Parker, and John Dewey, and there was a sense of renewal.
The title of our conference is “Challenging Assumptions: Revitalizing our Educational Vision for America.” Indeed, a heady and ambitious agenda for a conference. But gathered in this room today, are many who know well that there is an educational vision deeply rooted in our democratic principles of justice, equality and fairness. Every day in our schools, and in our work with children and youth, students are engaged with teachers who care about and nurture their souls; their ethical development; their conscience; their artistry; their creativity; their intellects; their growing minds. This week we gather to celebrate, share and herald this vision.
In 1917, Caroline Pratt, describing the motivation for starting City and Country School in New York, wrote: “We aim to attempt the revision of school practice from the ground up, by discarding at the beginning of our work all the traditional preconceptions that govern the standard practice of the schools today.” Please forgive me for reading that a second time….
Our aspirations are no less ambitious; indeed we face a great national challenge, as the educational community in this country shoulders the dreadful weight of NCLB, driven by normative standards, standardized test scores, and the narrowest, wrong-headed view of education America has ever known.
Isn’t it our imperative to herald another vision? To challenge the assumptions that drive education today? What we observe in the dominant educational system in this country is a closing of possibilities. Today we limit and restrict; we script and restrain. What we hold in common as progressive educators is our collective aspiration to open a world of endless possibilities for our students.
The first association of progressive educators was started in 1919 as the Association for the Advancement of Progressive Education, founded upon principles very resonant for us today:
• Freedom to develop naturally.
• Interest the motive of all work.
• The teacher as a guide, not a task-master
• Scientific study of pupil development
• Greater attention to all that affects the child’s physical development
• Cooperation between school and home to meet the needs of child-life
• The progressive school as a leader in educational movements
Isn’t it our imperative to revitalize the practices of progressive education’s past, and to marry them with what we recently have discovered about learning theory, human development, science, and technology?
This week, we shall evoke the past – through photos and stories and presentations and quotes. But this will not be simply a nostalgia trip (Thank you, Lillian Weber). We hope to bring you a connection to the rich and inspiring legacy of progressive education, but equally to seriously consider this current moment in time and our aspirations for a future vision.
In this vision, we have a fundamental respect for teachers, as artists, creators and thinkers.
We respect the strength and potential of our students.
We honor the creative, imaginative, and intellectual capacity of the learner.
We honor and respect and support society’s diversity, and we work in our schools for equity and justice.
We recognize the huge disparity which exists in this country between the children of the affluent and the children of the vast majority of the disadvantaged.
We strive to bring together in partnership the communties of the private independent schools, with the public schools. (In this room, we certainly see that possibility).
We honor the story of our schools, and what you as teachers bring to your students every day, and contribute to the history of progressive education. (Photos…Today/Yesterday)
We incorporate the latest advances in the understanding of how humans learn, and the strategies to best advance learning.
We know the current research on the human brain can guide our practice, and we respect and incorporate the latest advances in technology.
We seek knowledge through innovation.
We honor teaching practices which promote active learning.
We build among our students the knowledge and capacity to become agents of social change.
And we seek to contribute to the making of a just society and a world at peace.
This can be our moment; our time to awaken on a grander scale, and bring a clarion voice to contribute to society’s striving toward a new vision for Amercan Education. We thank you for your courage to be here, and in doing what you do everyday. We will call upon your voice over these next few days to help us herald this vision.
