He said he was a “Progressivist.” He was also the first self-proclaimed Marxist instructor that I had encountered in graduate school; it took a while for me to see the connection between those two terms. This talented educator, a provocative instructor and effective orator, immersed us in anti-capitalist and neo-socialist ideals through readings of such writers as Bowles, Gintis, Dewey, Piaget, Kilpatrick, Spencer, Rousseau and many others. The soft-utopian, anti-religious, social justice through government sponsored redistribution of individual wealth ideas of these self-proclaimed “Progressive” social revolutionaries, re-engineers, and revisionists now form the fundamental thought-world of American teachers’ colleges and schools of education (Aeschlamin, 2003).
These ideas are pervasive, in part, because few prospective teachers progress through teacher education programs without being exposed to the relativist, utopian, and socialist-leaning ideals contained in the writings of such individuals as John Dewey. Dewey is considered by many to be the founding father of Progressivism. His ideological worldview of child-centered education, a.k.a., Constructivism or democratic education has a degree of merit, but like any other explanation it has its limited utility. It is also at the core of much educational theory today in public schools and higher education, including the teaching of multiculturalism.
Dewey’s ideas, grounded in the intellectual pedigree or tradition of the relativist philosopher Rousseau, called for what has become a more Constructivist approach to thinking about teaching and learning for life in the early 20th Century and today. Constructivism is, simply stated, the Progressivist’s contempt for any behaviorist molding of a child; training up a child in the ways they are to go, think, or behave is considered oppressive, an argument that could be true if children were taught self-destructive patterns and false ideals. Ideological Constructivism alleges to uphold the primary virtue of agency or individual choice; all other so-called virtues are relative. Let each child experience and then draw their individual conclusions; this is relativism and narcissism.
Constructivism/Progressivism, then, is relativist in orientation, arguably preferring the promotion of difference or diversity to the transmission of truth and values; each child must discover and determine the pathway and meaning of truth and virtue. Purist Constructivists reject algorithms in school as much as they resent orthodoxies, especially in society; knowledge, standards, and morals are entirely grounded in individual and/or social custom, varying from culture to culture, person to person, moment to moment, circumstance to circumstance (Bruce, 2003). This Constructivist notion has flourished in schools under the name of multiculturalism and the idea of cultural relativism. Cultural relativism is the lack of judgment about cultures that gives them an odd and indefensible sort of equality; as if to say, they’re all good, don’t make judgments and don’t ask questions. Cultural relativism is a dumbing down influence.
A Lost Sense of Historical Identity
The popularity of Dewey’s relativist, anti-religious, and child-centered ideas has helped to create the conditions that have altered our historical sense of identity, and therefore, our sense of the meaning and purpose of democracy; many of his followers would disagree with me and say that Dewey has helped clarify these meanings in more Progressive (implying forward thinking) ways. No doubt his ideas are compelling, and they do deserve some deference, but they are incomplete explanations, especially in matters of agency and freedom. “What makes us great and our lives valuable,” said Tammy Bruce (2003) “is the fact that although we could do anything we please, we don’t” (2003, p.22).
This is true freedom - to know right from wrong and to act rightly of our own will; the knowledge of right and wrong comes best through transmission and not experimentation. Why dance with the devil only to learn what others have been saying since Adam and Eve? Dance with the devil and he will surely step on your toes. Besides, experience is often overrated as a teacher. How many people repeat their blunders with regularity? How many people come to wish that they had listened and not experimented? The pursuit of experience is sometimes costly; here is where a more behaviorist approach of “train up a child in the way he is to go” seems superior to me as a parent and professor.
To those with better understandings of human nature, the Progressivist view of freedom may be concerning because it is so limited. Democracy or freedom is more than the right to self-determine all things individually and culturally through experimental, experiential and naturalistic means; thus, learning is no more all about the natural than freedom is all about the individual. Kieran Egan, professor of education at Boston University and author of Getting It Wrong from the Beginning: Our Progressivist Inheritance from Herbert Spencer, John Dewey, and Jean Piaget (2002), develops this point in his book and expounds the ways that Progressivists share a naïve belief in nature; I encourage you to read the book. This misunderstanding of nature translates to, among other things, a misunderstanding of human nature, claims Dinesh D’Souzah, author of What’s So Great About America (2002). Misunderstanding human nature sets up a host of conditions that advance lesser truths, ideals, and developments (see Weightier Matters by Dallin H. Oaks, BYU Speeches).
The Dumbing Down of the American Mind
As a public educator for nearly 25 years and student of popular culture for nearly double that, I believe that attending to lesser things/arguments is also contributing to a “dumbing down” of the American public, and, therefore, public education in America. This reduction in quality means a reduction in performance, caused in part says Professor Egan by the popularity and prevalence of Progressivist theories. Egan believes that generations of schoolchildren have been deprived of challenging tasks because influential Progressivists thinkers (who have arguably been around in some ideological form since before the early 20th century) said they were incapable of them, or they might damage fragile self-esteems. This diminishing of quality education is also the consequence of a passionate opposition to memorization, coupled with a breakdown in the teaching of and knowledge about American history, Western literature and values. Parenthetically, I marvel when I hear the term Western values associated with today’s immoral behaviors. These are not the values that built the West.
In our day, teachers are taught to focus on what the child brings with them. The child’s individual culture and life experience, while not unimportant, becomes an incomplete road map for thinking about curricula, teaching and learning. Here again is the influence of multiculturalism, or as one scholar recently called it, the simultaneous celebration of what the child uniquely is and the gradual death of what America (and I will add American education) uniquely was (Peter Wood, author of Diversity: The Invention of a Concept, 2003). This emphasis on background as content can refocus teaching and learning in troublesome ways. For example, in an attempt to honor individualism, experience and background, I was asked by a group of self-professed Progressivist classroom teachers to “facilitate” their discussion of diversity rather than teach my course outline.
They asked me to intentionally remain silent about my own beliefs in order to respect (or more truthfully not possibly disrespect) their diverse backgrounds, experiences, and ideas. My lifetime of preparation to design and teach this course, and my professional perceptions of what they needed to consider as developing teachers and learners were overcome by, among other things, their demand for unfettered individualism and unrestrained affirmation as Constructivist learners. I worried that this class would not explore new learning so much as confirm old beliefs and common prejudices. It would have been the epitome of the old axiom, eventu rerum stolidi didicere magistro, “the stupid have no teacher except their own experience” (Aeschliman, 2003). I declined to teach the course because I could not fully accept the conditions they offered, and because Constructivism, like any other theory, only takes us so far in developing and testing new understandings and assumptions. Constructivism puts too many constraints upon the teaching and learning environment.
Progressivism the Dominant Worldview in Academia
Progressivism is not the only possible explanation of reality, and, therefore, not the only theory for looking at teaching and learning; it is, however, the dominant worldview in academia. It is, as a dear friend and Constructivist proponent recently told me, “a revolution that now has reached critical mass enough to gain power in education and society.” This concerns me; it speaks to the further politicization of educating beyond the historical “3 R’s” and continues to frame education as a social experiment with political aims. This sets up culture wars within the schools and further compromises intellectual honesty and diversity; the politics of educating become a high stakes means of promoting competing agendas. Under such conditions, school choice options may look irresistible to those with differing philosophies of teaching, learning, and living, or who just want to mainly and more fully focus on the basics in school.
The current Progressivist revolution to own educational theory, and, therefore, to influence social reality was attested to in a recent article by researcher Christina Hoff Sommers. Dr. Hoff Sommers, a prominent and controversial scholar who likes to hold Progressivists and other liberal reformers accountable to their claims recently reported on a study of the political and ideological ideas and ideals of professors in America (2002). As anyone associated with academia today knows, the majority of professors tend to identify with leftist and liberal ideals; politically they are nearly all Democrats.
Not surprisingly, so are many of their impressionable charges, especially growing numbers of teachers who have, at the encouragement of their national teachers’ union leaders come to view current educational policies and reform intentions with mistrust (they act as though No Child Left Behind was not bipartisan). In today’s politically driven educational world, teachers would do well to view all political and educational ambitions with thoughtful skepticism and careful analysis, and to read a broad spectrum of commentaries. To do less spawns anti-intellectualism and unnecessary bias within the ranks. You might find, for example, The Worm in the Apple: How the Teacher Unions are Destroying American Education by Peter Brimelow (2003) to be a thoughtful and worthwhile discussion on the impact of teacher unions on teaching and learning.
Teachers should be, above all others, the most thoughtful, educated, articulate, and broadly read of professionals, constantly challenging their professional assumptions and educational theories. Regrettably, they are not always encouraged to be this way. In many places I have visited, any thoughtful teacher that challenges convention (political and educational correctness) in school will likely be branded as a dissident; teachers often feel the pressure of intellectual and cultural conformity more than most professionals, which partially explains why they so often work with doors closed. I have been in diverse schools all across America. Intellectual diversity is rarely encouraged or rewarded among faculty members. Instead we focus on ideas like “best practice” that can, in some instances, hinder real imagination in teaching and spawn ideological and theoretical conformity, especially in our test-driven and portfolio-constructing era. These are tough times for teachers - and kids.
Determining who is to blame for educational failings is as difficult as determining who is in charge of educating youngsters. Do we blame Progressivists, parents, poverty, racism, multiculturalism, conservativism, or the teachers themselves? Clearly what eats at society devours public education. And the growing absence of intellectual diversity and presence of theoretical and pedagogical polarization in too many academic (and political) settings will do little to resolve these matters.
Concluding Comments
I began this essay by speaking of a Marxist professor who was a profound educator; he could surely teach, and he passionately presented his topics. Over the years he has likely shifted the thinking of many of his charges toward his direction; I have likely met many of them in public education. They sometimes advocate what they do not fully understand, but it makes them feel Progressive and good about themselves to do so. And who can blame teachers for doing something that makes them feel good about themselves, given how discouraging the work of teachers can be?
My instructor was the quintessential ‘60’s radical professor, and his ideological counterparts fill college campuses everywhere, just as his ideological offspring fill classrooms throughout the nation. The most learned of them, I have found during my tenure as a professor, are disinterested in intellectual diversity; they intentionally spawn mistrust in the historical establishment (a not altogether bad idea) while promising more than their Marxist or relativist ideals could ever hope to deliver as a reform. They are rejectionists with no new message of hope. Instead, they disparage the past, virtue, religion, and increasingly America. Some do this passionately, as did my professor and others do it subtly, as have many other educators that I have known throughout the past three decades. My Marxist professor used his classroom authority to advance his powerful worldviews; his content consisted of his beliefs and experiences, reinforced by readings of similar thinkers. True, he made me think. His goal, however, was clearly to make me doubt.
What I have come to doubt over the years were his claims. He was wrong about so many things. Socialism cannot be a cure-all relief for inequality any more than capitalism can be. There is no utopia yet on earth. The poor will always be among us; however, a nation increasing in pure religion would eventually eliminate poverty through generous giving or the true united order; that would make us a better nation. Conversely, a godless nation will move towards socialism as the great equalizer, and where in the world has this been a model of efficiency, equality, ingenuity, or growth?
Because of the preeminence of Progressivist ideals in America’s centers for learning, I encourage Meridian readers to read more broadly, especially when pursuing an “education.” It is the only way that true intellectual diversity can be attained in today’s politically charged, educational climate. Recognize that theories come from worldviews; they are interpreted from experience by people with a belief system of how things ought to be - remember that researchers frame the questions to be answered. Thus, theories are only possibilities and incomplete possibilities at best. Read your texts, and read the critics of your text. Ask hard questions about the philosophical as well as practical intentions and implications of any argument or idea. And, when it comes to secular ideas, I encourage you to read what seeming critics of a movement, idea, method or theory are saying. The information gained from such efforts will help to expand your thinking beyond what a given course might otherwise offer. And remember that America was not invented in the 1960’s. There are countless books written before that time in all fields that are both priceless and timeless - if you can find them. Many of them, though now discredited by association with a past found wanting by some, will have superior ideas because they were written at a time when research and science were not so compromised by advocacy.
Lastly, there is a spiritual side to all this. I will say more about that in my next article.
References
Aeschlamin, M.D. (2003). Cults of Ignorance. National Review, May 5, 2003.
Bruce, T. (2003). The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left’s assault on our
culture and values. Roseville, CA: Prima Publishing.
Hoff Sommers, C. (2002). The Dearth of Conservatives in Academia. Deseret News, May 12, AA2.
