Progressives at War in Schools and Classrooms*
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Making most teachers superb artisans in their classroom craft and individualizing instruction for 30-plus students have eluded policymakers, academics, and practitioners for well over a century. With the publication of Doug Lemov’s Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques That Put Students on the Path to College and the prototype “School of One” in New York City, progressive dreams of better teaching and personalized learning once again confront the realities of public schooling in the U.S.
First, Teach Like a Champion. A former Teach for America alumnus, Lemov studied and video-taped TFAers and veteran teachers in largely poor and minority schools who were successful in managing their classes and raising students’ test scores. He distilled what he learned from hundreds of teachers he observed into 49 techniques–he is explicit about the word “techniques,” making clear that teaching is a craft that can be learned and that these tools are associated with teacher success in urban schools.
Now, “School of One.” It is a one million dollar pilot after-school math program aimed at low-income minority middle school students that individualizes
On Changing One’s Mind about Schooling
In Diane Ravitch’s new book (The Death and Life of the Great American School System), she tells of her recent switch from championing school reforms (testing, accountability, and choice) as a federal policymaker, educational historian, and pundit to rejecting these policies. Ravitch’s turnaround got me thinking about what I had believed earlier in my career and believe now fifty years later.
I began teaching high school in 1955 filled with the passion to teach history to youth and help them find their niche in the world while making a better society. At that time, I believed wholeheartedly in words taken from John Dewey’s “Pedagogic Creed” (1897): “… education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform.”
And I tried to practice those utopian words in my teaching in Cleveland (OH) and Washington, D.C. between the early 1960s and mid-1970s. While in retrospect I could easily call this faith in the power of teaching and schooling to make a better life and society naïve, I do not. That passionate idealism about teaching and the role that schooling plays in a democratic, market-driven society gave meaning and drive to those long days working as a teacher, getting married, starting a family, and taking university classes at night.
That confident belief in the power of schools to reform society took me to Washington, D.C. in 1963 to teach Peace Corps returnees how to become teachers at Cardozo High School. I stayed nearly a decade in D.C.
I began teaching high school in 1955 filled with the passion to teach history to youth and help them find their niche in the world while making a better society. At that time, I believed wholeheartedly in words taken from John Dewey’s “Pedagogic Creed” (1897): “… education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform.”
And I tried to practice those utopian words in my teaching in Cleveland (OH) and Washington, D.C. between the early 1960s and mid-1970s. While in retrospect I could easily call this faith in the power of teaching and schooling to make a better life and society naïve, I do not. That passionate idealism about teaching and the role that schooling plays in a democratic, market-driven society gave meaning and drive to those long days working as a teacher, getting married, starting a family, and taking university classes at night.
That confident belief in the power of schools to reform society took me to Washington, D.C. in 1963 to teach Peace Corps returnees how to become teachers at Cardozo High School. I stayed nearly a decade in D.C.
