Progressive vs. Traditional Education

One of the biggest issues in schools today is: How should we teach? What methods are the best, ethically, educationally, morally, and so on and so forth. The two main ideas behind the "how" of education are the progressive and traditional methods. The first is the idea of using the current technology and media to create a more fun and engaging classroom environment. The traditional method is the "tried and true" style of teaching, your basic textbook approach to passing on information to your students.

Now the real question is, if one of the methods is more affective, than which is it? Is the traditional method too close-minded and stuffy? Are there possible ethical and moral liabilities to teaching with the progressive method? To best address the issue, let us take a look at the structure and concepts of both methods.

The Traditional Method:
The name of this method makes all seem fairly self-explanitory, but it would be best to go into details. Most upholders of this method are older teachers, though they are by no means the only ones. This method is more about passing on information, and less about its presentation. The traditional method usually relies heavily on adherence to textbooks and learning by rote. It is concidered a "safe" method of teaching, without worries about crossing any lines or tredding on anyone's toes.

The Progressive Method:
This method is much more varied in its aspects, for it relies much more heavily on the ingenuity and creativity of each individual teacher. Basically, the varations found within this method are different for every teacher, though there are obviously some commone elements. One such element is the inclusion of modern media as a method of engaging student interest in the classroom. This is considered more risky, because of the controversial topics that are often found in the news, movies, and music of the modern world. Since each teacher has their own view on what is proper to teach in the classroom, and so the range of material used in the progressive method can vary quite widely. This is one of the main contensions against this method, because it brings up the hugely debated issue of what should be taught in our classrooms, and how much control over that material should schools have, if any at all.

Standing these two methods against each other, we can see obvious strengths and weakness inherent in both systems. For instance, the traditional method is accepted by most everybody as a "safe and assured" way of teaching our children. Teachers can interchange easily in terms of substituting in the classroom if everyone is keeping a similar sort of schedule, so one teacher can pick up where the other left off the day before. Every child will learn the exact same thing (supposedly) and this means that all children should progress at an equal rate. However, it has the downside in that much of the time (and this is my personal opinion here) it is incredibly dull. It lacks the flexibility that is necessary in order to stimulate a student's interest and enthusiasm.

The progressive method has the advantage of being far more flexible in terms of providing varied and diverse methods of teaching and for a much more colorful and (hopefully) intriguing way of presenting knowledge to students. Using movies and songs from the modern world that students find easy to relate to make the learning experience more fun and relavent to those students. As stated above, the main downfalls are the huge controversies that address the types of materials being used in by teachers who favor this method, and the issues of personal moral and ethical codes that parents are trying to instill in their children.

The best approach to teaching is actually a mixture of these two methods. While some would argue hotly that the two could never mix, I strongly and sincerely disagree. This is a conclusion that not only have I come to on my own, but have also witnessed and experienced first hand. The basis of this, shall we say, "Dual-Study Method" is quite simple, and in fact quite logical. Let me outline it for you.

Point #1: Students abhor textbooks. This is a well known fact, and if it isn't, well shame on the teaching community for ignoring the grumblings of their students. When a student take the time to see how many times the use word 'octopuses' rather than 'octopi' is used in their bio textbook, then something is wrong. (This is actually a personal experience, sad to say.) The student has little or no interest in the class, and while it cannot all be blamed on the teacher, a large portion of the responcibility is theirs.

The answer is to this problem according to the Dual-Study Method might seem a bit odd to some, but is mostly common sense. Don't teach strictly from the textbook. A textbook is basically essential for a teacher to lay out a semester or year-long course, as it has all the basic information at hand. It also gives a good source of information for the student to refer to. However, in my own personal experience, the most powerful and memorable classes I have taken used a textbook very seldomly. Most of the material was presented in a very engaging and inclusive atmosphere that drew students in and made them want to learn. Now I realize that this is very impractical for the fields of mathematics and the higher sciences, as well as a some others, but the basic principle can easily be applied to many courses in virtually any other field. This is a topic I plan on addressing in further depth at a later date.

Point #2: Teaching is not just throwing knowledge at students, but getting them to retain and remember it as well. One of the best ways to do this is make the information relavent to them in some way, or present it in such a way that will make it memorable to them, even if they never thought they cared about it much in the first place. For instance, in a physics class at my high school, they took a scene from the movie The Return of the King and measured the amount a force that would be exerted upon an orc by a stone launched from a trebuchet off the walls of the city of Minus Tirith. Now I don't know about you, but doing something as awesomely geeky and absurd as that would stick in my memory for some time, and I don't think I'd be able to forget the scientific and mathematical knowledge involved, even if I wanted to. So, once again, the key is presenting material in such a way that students will want to learn the material at hand. Now, I make the consession that there will always be students that will fight against their teachers no matter what is tried, but this holds true for only a few, and they are the ones that we must try hardest to reach.

Point #3: This point deals with the topic of materials taught in class by the progressive method. I will refrain from going too indepth, lest this simple article turn into a book. Instead, I will keep it to a few, simple, concise points.

1: While materials can vary vastly from teacher to teacher, there is a general concensus on what is "appropriate" for the classroom.

2: To the parents that are worried about the material being presented to your children in school, I can only say this. With very, and I mean VERY, few exceptions, your child has heard, seen, and read far worse than they will come across in a classroom. Trust your child's teachers to know the bounds of common sense and propriety. They have the interests of your child at heart. If your child does have problems with the material being used in class, then be responsible and talk to that teacher in an adult and mature fashion, and don't go out right away looking to bust skulls. (pardon my vernacular)

3: Teachers, use your brains. It sounds harsh, I know, but it needs to be said sometimes. Think of your students, their age, what they are learning, and use that as a basis for the types of material that you bring to the classroom as teaching aids. As teachers, we are the ones responsible for the things children take away from school, and those things need to be positive and healthy. Talk to your students, and make sure they are comfortable with the way things are being taught.

It has come time to bring this long-winded speech to a close, so I will leave you with these thoughts. What are your fondest memories inside the classroom when you were a student? What did you dislike the most? How would you wish to be taught?



faithfully yours,
Davin