Full Description
Over the course of the twentieth century, North American public school curricula moved away from the classics and the humanities, and towards 'progressive' subjects such as health and social studies. This book delves into how progressivist thinking transformed the rhetoric and the structure of schooling during the first half of the twentieth century, with echoes that reverberate strongly today, and investigates historical meanings of progressive education.
Theodore Michael Christou closely examines the case of interwar Ontario, where the entire landscape of public education, including curricula and avenues to post-secondary study, were radically transformed over just twenty years. Christou contextualizes this reformist thinking in light of a social, political, and economic climate of change, which seemed to demand schools that could actively relate learning to the real world. Through its examination of educational journals published throughout the interwar period and previously unexplored archival sources, this book illuminates how the present structure of curricula and schooling were achieved.
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: What Was Progressive Education?
1 Ontario's Educational Context in the Interwar Period
2 Approaching Progressive Education
3 Progressive as Active Learning: Critiques of Rote Scholarship in School
Child Study and Developmental Psychology
Social Efficiency and Adjustment to Industry
Social Meliorism and Engagement with Social Ills
4 Progressive as Individualized Instruction: Critiques of Content-Driven Learning
Child Study and Developmental Psychology
Social Efficiency and Adjustment to Industry
Social Meliorism and Engagement with Social Ills
5 Progressive as Contemporary: Critiques of Learning Correlating Schools and Society
Child Study and Developmental Psychology
Social Efficiency and Adjustment to Industry
Social Meliorism and Engagement with Social Ills
6 Humanists as the Foil to Progressivists: Resistance to Progressivist Reforms in Ontario
7 Continuities and Change: Reforming the Curriculum and the War's Impact on Progressivist Rhetoric, 1937-1942
Conclusion: Progressive in a Parallel Way
Appendices
Appendix A. Public School Enrolments in Ontario
Appendix B. Composition of the Department of Education
Appendix C. Circulation Statistics for Source Journals
Notes
References
Index
