Afghanistan's public education system has been victimized by the brutal oppression of the Taliban Regime. Schools were destroyed, teachers were executed, and women were prevented from receiving an education. However, the situation has improved in recent years. Public school enrollment rates and educational access for females have substantially…

A school that holds as a central belief that knowledge is individually and socially constructed by learners who are active observers of the world, active questioners, agile problem posers and critical and creative problem solvers must evolve leadership models and organizational patterns that mirror this model of genuine and meaningful learning as…

Facing repressive accountability regimes and high-stakes testing in the US and beyond, university and practitioner educators around the world decided to take action. Inspired by the democratic administration movement of the 1930's and 1940's and current scholarship in ethics, we started a movement called the New DEEL (Democratic Ethical…

The combination of pedagogy and political aims, a constant theme in the progressive school education literature, is reflected as well in the history of museum education. Museum educators, following the lead of John Dewey, advocated for experiential pedagogy, a natural course for museums since they emphasize learning from objects and experiences…

Historically, educators and philosophers have struggled with defining the role and the value of formal curriculum and its impact on classroom praxis. As the current accountability movement dominates discussions in education, educators are pressured to implement increasingly standardized curricula. The authors of this work consider these tensions,…

During the Spanish Second Republican government (April 1931-July 1939), there was an institutional initiative in the country called "Misiones Pedagogicas", deeply based in the early Deweyan conception of Progressive Education. The aim of this project was bringing access to culture, entertainment and some sort of progress to rural areas…

This article explores one teacher education program's experiment in "turning the souls" of its students to help them understand and care deeply about issues of race and social justice, as well as issues of environmental sustainability. The Putney Graduate School of Teacher Education, (1950-1964) a small, "reconstructionist" program, was based upon…

By considering ethics and morals from a vantage point in which personal and political beliefs become part of our national debate, students could form the habit of political discussion in much the same way that representatives of social and political groups prepare and respond on a daily basis to an ever inquiring media. I will explore several…

Drawing on the past and current practices of a group of educators that just celebrated its 40th year as a progressive elementary school in a suburban public school system, the article begins by considering the role that various groups have played in sustaining the school's success for over four decades. These groups include a long-term university…

After 36 years of working as a progressive educator in American schools, the author notes the near absence of joy, passion, and imagination that today's students experience. He asks, "Where's wonder?" In this essay, the author makes a case for the role of wonder in learning as he reflects on his work with schools and museum educators at…

Seikatsu tsuzurikata is a grassroots movement in Japan that has many parallels to the whole language movement, but it developed completely independently, beginning in the late 1920s. Our research into this movement was conducted in 1984 and described in Kitagawa and Kitagawa (1987). We are now updating our earlier research. Seikatsu tsuzurikata is…

The author situates this paper within ongoing debates in related areas such as reflective practice, critical pedagogy, practical wisdom and critical theory. First, the author identifies some of the problems in the present notions of reflective teaching and progressive teacher education. The analyzes and compares the traditional-technical and…