Polishing the Progressive Approach

I've been thinking a lot lately about what brought me to the progressive independent school where I work. Why did I land here rather than somewhere else? I know the answer lies in the school's mission--not its mission statement, or its heritage, or image, though all these count, but in its defining purpose.

All the people at my school arrived here, I imagine, by different routes. Some always knew they'd be educators, some tried other fields. Some have taught around the globe, in other schools and with other approaches. Some are dyed-in-the-wool progressives. Whatever the path, we all now find ourselves the spokespeople for a tradition, a specific belief in children, and a philosophy. Today we are the protectors of an endangered educational species.

My own route began when I had children in 1972 and started to read educational writers of the 1960s like John Holt, Jonathan Kozol, Herbert Kohl, Robert Coles, George Dennison, and Ned O'Gorman. These writers made education, and teaching in particular, feel like a mission. In their own unorthodox ways, they were each helping children live more fully and work more resolutely to better their world. This soon felt like a meaningful career avenue for me--and so it has been. The progressive approach seemed to make sound child sense, though I didn't have a fully formed notion then of what...