In the spring of 2014, Chicago educators met to reflect on the opportunities and challenges for progressive, democratic education in Chicago-area schools. This article weaves together the writings of teachers and principals from over 15 public schools and a couple of private and parochial schools who are thinking about their own experiences in…

This piece explores questions of power, conflict, and community in education through a story of Chicago educators engaging in experiential inquiry processes. One of these processes is a "Theatre of the Oppressed" exercise for dealing with conflict in education settings. The other process described here focuses on a text that emerged from…

John Dewey was inspired by what he termed "the miracle of shared experience and shared communication." His faith in the power of individuals working in democratic association also included warnings of a darker side, the "monstrosities" that individuals can become when they live and work in isolation from others. In this father-son letter exchange,…

The work of Colonel Francis W. Parker, the man whom Dewey called "the father of progressive education," provides a starting point for reconstructing the loose ambiguities of progressive education into a coherent social and educational philosophy. Although progressives have claimed their approach is more humane and sensitive to children, we need…

The article examines the enactment of culturally relevant progressivism on the part of the principal of the Social Justice School, a small urban public high school explicitly committed to democratic education. Drawing upon extensive interviews and field observations conducted over the course of an academic year by a teacher-researcher within the…

This dialogue is an edited version of a dialogue between William C. Ayers and William H. Schubert at the November 10-12, 2011, meeting of the Progressive Education Network hosted by the Francis W. Parker School in Chicago, Illinois. It was the opening keynote session on the evening of November 10. Ayers interviewed Schubert, who acted as John…

A system of accountability in public schools predicated upon standardized testing accompanied by high-stakes consequences for leaders, as well as teachers and students, has posed a daunting challenge to educational leaders who align themselves with core tenets of progressive education. This essay explores what it might mean--and take--to stay true…

In this essay, a high school senior reflects on her educational experience as a journey beginning with her difficult decision to stay at Francis W. Parker School for high school and ending with her current search for a college where she can continue to explore the nature of education. Her narrative focuses on her experience in an elective course…

At the end of the 2011-12 version of the project course Schools Across Borders, Schools Across Time (SABSAT), a high school senior wrote a series of letters reflecting on the experience of participating in an unusual course with an unusual outcome. In the letters, the student wanted to evoke what was personal and what was critical--to herself, her…

This essay presents a reflective account of a preservice teacher's experience in her fieldwork practice. The author, a professor in the preservice teacher's education institute, acted as a critical friend and joined in the reflection as an equal. Based on the voices of the preservice teacher and a group of primary teachers, this essay presents a…

Exile has its place. As an age-old human response to conflict, its potential value to the healthy maturation of students and the school community should not be discounted. Exile or ostracism goes by various names in school. Students are told: Move your desk. Leave the classroom and wait in the hall. Go to the office. Go to detention. You're…

For millions of years, human beings evolved and then lived in small social groupings that were intergenerational, with simple divisions of labor, oriented to common tasks and values. It was a limited existence in many ways, but there was community and continuity. And now, very suddenly in evolutionary time, we have built the teeming cities and…

This article examines Francis W. Parker's (1837-1902) and Tsunesaburo Makiguchi's (1871-1944) views of harmonious community life as the goal of education through bilingual analysis of Parker's "My Pedagogic Creed" (1897) and Makiguchi's On the Significance of Social Aspects that Mr. Parker Says Should be Incorporated into the School Experience…

In this piece, the author explores the concepts of teaching and learning through the work of Plato and of the founders of Francis W. Parker School. The school was founded around a century ago as a progressive institution following viewpoints of leaders such as Francis Parker and John Dewey. After reading works by these authors and sitting in on a…