A retired public school teacher recollects and reflects upon her collaboration with Patricia F. Carini, founder of the Prospect School and the Prospect Center for Education and Research. The recollections synthesize her participation in annual Prospect gatherings with an eclectic group of like-minded educators and caretakers from all over the…

In his acceptance speech of the National Academy of Kinesiology's (NAK) 2008 Hetherington Award, Daryl Siedentop (2008) humbly declared: "I have had the privilege for many years to play a small role in the development of research in the field now universally referred to as sport pedagogy" (p. 10). That declaration encapsulates the manner…

Teachers can learn a lot from John Dewey's approach to teaching science. The author contends that his thoughts are still relevant and applicable to today's classrooms.

The article by Collins, Hess, and Lowery (2019) explores struggles teachers faced in order to pursue Deweyan educational practices. This response proposes that even more is needed for a critical educational practice, called "strong democracy." Such an approach requires addressing and countering the White supremacist legacy of U.S.…

Caroline Pratt, the founder of the City and Country School, is one of the few educators who tried to work out a program that would engage and develop students' imaginations. Along with other progressive educators, however, she has been criticized for her child-centeredness, that is, valuing children's spontaneity at the expense of planning and…

O'Neill argues that the standard social democratic narrative of state schooling as a consensual, whole-of-society commitment to reduce educational inequalities across the system as a whole, for the collective well being of all, has been displaced by marketplace or commodity progressivism. He takes the position that reducing educational…

Dewey famously believed that we learn through experience, through which we build up habits. Education should be about developing good habits. Experience for Dewey, is not an individual possession but grows out of social interaction, which always takes place in a given culture. Dewey's views on culture are significant in relation to a current issue…

In this commentary, Elana Michelson responds to Chad Hoggan and Tetyana Kloubert's critique of Michelson's "The Ethical Knower: Rethinking Our Pedagogy in the Age of Trump" (2019). Michelson concludes that Hoggan and Kloubert are right to call attention to the reemergence of fascist discourse and action across much of the globe and to…

John Dewey was a progressive theorist, a pragmatist, a philosopher, and arguably the most influential American educator of the twentieth century. Yet, despite extensive documentation about John Dewey's philosophies of education and democracy, there is limited research and no consensus about Dewey's views about race and racism. I use a combination…

This essay reviews Atkinson's article "Dewey and Democracy" and argues that while Dewey and the social foundations classroom may indeed be important for teacher preparation, it is not in the way Atkinson suggests. Namely, I argue that Atkinson's essay has three distinct (yet interrelated) issues: his problematic oversimplifications, what…

The new Progressive Education Network mission says that Progressive Education "promotes diversity, equity, and justice." These goals cannot be met unless there are substantial changes in the way the majority of teachers in the United States, white women teachers, think and operate. This open letter to that audience from a white woman…

This essay situates John Dewey in the context of the founding of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in 1915. We argue that the 1915 Declaration of Principles, together with World War I, provides contemporary academics important historical justification for rethinking academic freedom and faculty governance in light of…

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…

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…

As a summary of current advances in developmental psychology, the above article makes some useful contributions. As a contribution to educational policy and practice, it is limited if not a failure for two reasons. It fails to come to grips with the real demands of living classrooms, and second, it fails to grasp the actual subjective lives of the…