Pragmatic Progressivism

By Angela Dye

America's schools are currently being impacted by several key forces. First there is the browning of our country and therefore a browning of our student body. Next, there is a persistence of an achievement gap produced by a change in student demographics all in tandem with the maintenance of stratified power (often advantaging those wi

• Language: English
• Publisher: EduMatch
• Release date: Jun 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9781959347309

Book preview

1

HOW IT BEGAN

For me, high school was sterile. It was irrelevant and quite disconnected to my daily reality. I had gone from having a dad at home, to no dad at home, to a new man at home who did not want the job of being dad. There is more that I can say in that my formative brain development occurred in the context of domestic violence and other forms of trauma. However , I think the father/fatherlessness carousel is enough to provide an overview of the voids I experienced as a child… to explain why high school was a season of trouble… and to explain why I needed schooling to be more than about college and career readiness. I needed it to also be about empowerment.  

While my habits as a high school learner mirrored the habits of what has been identified today as the at-risk student, I still managed to graduate. Even though schooling was dark, my family had ways to make sure I crawled into the light. A major influence was my grandmother’s Wall of Fame where all seven of her children's high school graduation pictures still hang.  I knew my picture was expected on that wall and I was not, especially as the first grandchild, going to be the person to break the tradition.  So even though the world was dark, I did a lot of negotiating and navigating through what I have now framed the schooling game. It was that game, influenced by the Wall of Fame, that pulled me through and helped me to graduate on time.

After high school, it did not take long for me to realize that the jobs available to me with just a high school diploma were not going to honor my true potential. After taking a year off (which was more about interest—or lack thereof—than it was about strategy), I returned to school. It was a local community/technical college and there I fell in love with learning. Learning in that space was not about schooling as much as it was about relevance and control. In deciding my schedule, my course of study, and my purpose as a learner, I used schooling to transcend my lived reality. It was there, through a new context for schooling, that I began to live a mission-driven life.

From this experience, I decided to pursue a bachelor's degree as opposed to an associate’s.  I transferred to a small, all women's college who prided itself on being performance-based, student-centered, and abilities-driven—methods I eventually came to understand as progressivism.  Through these methods, the instructional power structure was more flat and horizontal. As a result, I was able to take ownership of my learning and walk into my ideals on individual achievement. In this progressive space, I not only discovered that learning was empowering, but I also discovered myself as a learner along with how to actually learn. In the end, I mastered how to increase my personal power!

After four (plus) years, I graduated with a social science degree (and a teaching certificate) and eventually made my way into the classroom as a teacher. There, I brought with me my personal story and the progressive ideals of my teacher training.  I placed students at the center of their learning, and I gave them control and autonomy in the learning process. I found alternative ways for them to demonstrate knowing, and regardless of their reading level, their writing skills, or their behaviors, I engaged them in higher-order taxonomies (beyond the extra-credit questions that come at the end of worksheets).  As I grew, I increasingly found ways to make learning standards and textbook readings relevant to students’ personal lives. I integrated performance-based projects into my instruction so that studying about effective citizenship translated into living-out effective citizenship. Progressive-based teaching was not just an intellectual decision.  In terms of what it had done for me, bringing me out of my own demise and personal darkness, it was a moral one.  

Through a more progressive model, the line from the spiritual song Amazing Grace has meaning... I once was lost, but now I am found.  Personally, I could instinctively relate to students in the darkness. However, through instruction (as guided by a progressive model), I was able to relate to them in the light!

MOVING BEYOND PROGRESSIVISM

My experiences as a high school student and then as a college student gave me a personal understanding of the benefits of a progressive learning model. But if I am honest, being a progressive educator worked only because I was willing to reach outside of the progressive box and locate and use other methods that would generate results in which I could be proud.

While I will offer ideals and strategies throughout this book for transitioning into pragmatic-progressivism (my approach for extending beyond the progressive box), I want to dedicate the rest of this chapter to three powerful educators who helped me gain clarity and confidence as I made the transition.

LISA DELPIT

Having approximately twelve years of post-secondary education, I have been exposed to many books about teaching and learning and I am proud to admit that many have had a transforming impact on my practice. However, when I read Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom (Delpit, 1995), I was moved in a way that no other text had moved me as a classroom teacher.

I was fortunate to start my teaching career in progressive spaces... in spaces that promoted group work, collaboration, authentic assessments, and performance standards and abilities. While these environments allowed me to thrive in my progressive philosophy, I often found myself in conflict with my colleagues. I once was called to the office when my principal discovered that I required one of my students to participate in a weekly reading-writing activity. As I recall, she was very concerned that this particular 6 th grader, testing at a 2 nd grade reading level, was being required to read news articles and write one-paragraph responses. Besides, as she reasoned, the student wanted to be a limousine