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The purpose of this study was to examine the life and work of Frank William Westhoff (1863-1938), a leader in music education during the progressive era (circa 1890s-1950s). Research questions focused on his work as a music supervisor, teacher educator, pedagogue, and textbook author. I also explored Westhoff's contributions to the profession and influence on music education. Westhoff was born in St. Charles County, Missouri, in 1863. He moved to Decatur, Illinois, in 1884, and in 1893 he began supervising music in the city's public schools. From 1901 to 1935, Westhoff served as music instructor at ISNU, where he taught methods classes, directed ensembles, and supervised music in the local public schools. He died in Normal, Illinois, in 1938. Although Westhoff was not as prominent a figure in music education as those who led the field on a national level during his time, he played an important role in sustaining, perpetuating, and expanding school music on a regional basis throughout much of the progressive era. He was a founding member of Music Supervisors' National Conference at Keokuk, Iowa, in 1907, and published numerous compositions and didactic materials, including a statewide curriculum that helped standardize music instruction in Illinois.

The Laboratory School of the University of Chicago founded by John Dewey in 1896 is considered as one of the most innovative schools of progressive education. Its history, and specifically its sudden end, is still of general interest. In sympathy with Dewey, most historians tend to put the main blame for the tragedy on University President William R. Harper who--by refusing financial and organizational support--seemingly harassed Dewey out of office. A new look at archival sources reveals a different picture. The main point of contention was not bureaucratic matters between Dewey and Harper but irreconcilable differences between Dewey's wife Alice and the faculty of the school who complained bitterly about her social and administrative incompetence as principal pushing the school on to the brink of disaster. Because of the extreme pressure exerted by trustees, colleagues and faculties, Harper could not help but ask Alice Dewey for her resignation. Given his own inability to manage business affairs, Dewey quit his job, too, in April 1904. Without his wife as principal, he saw no chance of realizing his educational ideas and left Chicago with a sigh of relief, freeing him forever from the unloved burden of administrative duties.

Using a Bernsteinian theoretical framework, this study compares two American early childhood centres, one with a primarily progressive pedagogy (Frank Lloyd Wright Family Centre) and one with a primarily traditional pedagogy (Casimir Pulaski Centre), in high-poverty Chicago neighbourhoods to examine the effects of different pedagogic practices on the development of academic and non-academic skills in young children as measured by pre- and post-testing and observations over five months. The collected data demonstrate that students at Wright experienced greater levels of academic development than students at Pulaski. Children at both sites showed development in literacy and social/emotional skills, but the children at Wright also show development in problem-solving and imagination--skills that aid in abstract thought. While further study is needed on a broader scale, results from this study suggest that early childhood programmes with more progressive elements have the potential to better prepare children for elementary school than programmes with more traditional elements.

This piece explores questions of power, conflict, and community in education through a story of Chicago educators engaging in experiential inquiry processes. One of these processes is a "Theatre of the Oppressed" exercise for dealing with conflict in education settings. The other process described here focuses on a text that emerged from and describes conflict in education. This text is a little-known manifesto of progressive education written in Chicago in 1900 that denounces the school system's disempowerment of teachers, their experiences, and their voices. This text, written by feminist educator Ella Flagg Young, offers an important corrective to progressive education literature by foregrounding the issue of power imbalance in education. By describing the educators' "Theatre of the Oppressed" process next to their reading of Young's "Isolation in the Schools," I seek to further discussion of power in education settings. I argue that group inquiry processes that facilitate analysis of power, as it operates both in interpersonal life and in systemic structures, embody the kind of power that Young sought for educators to create and sustain in the face of an education system dominated by wealthy white males.

In the spring of 2014, Chicago educators met to reflect on the opportunities and challenges for progressive, democratic education in Chicago-area schools. This article weaves together the writings of teachers and principals from over 15 public schools and a couple of private and parochial schools who are thinking about their own experiences in relation to what they learn of Mission Hill, a public progressive school in Boston. Through these diverse voices--Chicago counterparts of the diverse voices of Boston's Mission Hill School--discussing testing, teacher evaluation methods, classroom practice, and school culture, possibilities emerge for educators seeking to expand and deepen progressive practice in urban schools. Relationships of trust and respect, courageous action, and finding the cracks all prove important in the process.

This paper shows how the legacy of Jane Addams' socialized education can live on in today's progressive education, especially in the digital age. Discussion is drawn from a case study of an anti-underage drinking campaign conducted by urban youth of color in an afterschool program. The media ecology environment in the campaign--the integrated usage of new and traditional media--enriched the way the youth made sense of experience and communicated with the world. The campaign led youth to learn more about other important issues, culture, and community history. Another critical element of the campaign's success was the active participatory culture of local community organizations and businesses, which formed an extensive support network for the youth's engagement. This case suggests that the synergistic relationship between new media ecology and connected learning environments can make progressive education more promising in the digital age.

The need for progressive education is prevalent in one of the most underserved portions of the population: the adult developmentally disabled. Though John Dewey wrote little on the education of the disabled, his philosophy, and that of Mahatma Gandhi's, lend themselves to the further education of this unique segment of society. In this paper, I will be looking at developmentally disabled adults, specifically autistic individuals, living in group homes. It is the goal of developmentally developed group homes to advance the education of its residents so that they may eventually leave the home as competent, independent members of society. However, the education they are usually given is not tailored to their individual needs, reinforced through everyday activities, or provided in a manner respecting the individuals as people and not as objects. I will be discussing Gandhi's concepts of Basic Education as it can relate to the developmentally disabled and Kiyo Kitahara's use of Daily Life Therapy in the education of the autistic. I will examine the current system of learning in one specific group home and how Gandhi's and Kitahara's concepts of education can be used to improve the learning abilities of these individuals -- to allow them to move from institutionalized life to a fuller, more productive role in society.

In this essay, a high school senior reflects on her educational experience as a journey beginning with her difficult decision to stay at Francis W. Parker School for high school and ending with her current search for a college where she can continue to explore the nature of education. Her narrative focuses on her experience in an elective course called Schools Across Borders, Schools Across Time, a project course designed to produce a documentary video for an international conference on the intersection of two educational heritages: soka education in Japan and progressive education in the United States. She delves into reflections that took place within the course, including a visit from a Japanese delegation, the study of other progressive schools, an all-school assembly presentation, and the school's showing of Race to Nowhere and ensuing discussion. After the course ended, the author proposed an independent study on education for her junior year. Her study of John Dewey's Democracy and Education confirmed her commitment to schooling as a social rather than an individual enterprise. Her study of Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of Freedom affirmed the value of education as the discovery of agency. Much as she venerates the social values of cooperation and shared learning, it is still difficult for her to balance her intellectual commitment with the very real demands of the next stage of her education. Since college admissions largely isolate and reward the individual in competition with others, the author continues to wonder about how to reconcile her values with her ambitions. (Contains 1 figure.)

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 Dewey. The keynote addressed the contemporary relevance of Dewey for today's educational issues in general and in particular for the audience of leaders and teachers in progressive schools. Special focus was placed on both extant criticisms of progressive ideas and practices and the relevance and power of Dewey's ideas for improving education, social action, equity, and democracy today.

This essay constructs a comprehensive view of Dewey's approach to history, the historical method, and history education. Drawing on Dewey's approach to the subject at the University of Chicago Laboratory School (1896-1904), Dewey's chapter on the historical method in "Logic: A Theory of Inquiry" (1938), and a critique of Dewey's philosophy of history that appeared in the "American Historical Review" and the published response to this attack by Dewey's colleagues (1954), the author argues that Dewey consistently approached history in genetic and historicist terms. (Contains 45 notes.)

In the progressive era, the distinguished political scientist Robert Putnam explains, progressives invested heavily in "social capital," that is, in the stock of active connections, social networks, shared values, norms of reciprocity, trustworthiness, and friendship that bind people together (Putnam 2000, 395). They were, he argues, wise to do so because investment in "social capital," is "not an alternative to, but a prerequisite for, political mobilization and reform" (Putnam 2000, 399; his italics). It is what facilitates cooperative action, allows communities to advance smoothly, and widens awareness of the many ways in which human fates are interconnected. Educator Francis Wayland Parker's innovative Morning Exercise (school assembly) was an effective example of what Putnam's might describe as such an investment in social capital. In this article, the author describes Morning Exercise and makes clear Francis Parker's and his faculty's belief in the central role it should play in schools, the institution, they believed, itself central to democracy and progressivism. The author traces the early years of Morning Exercise under Parker's leadership at the Chicago Normal School, 1883-1899, its development in the brief-lived Institute Academic and Pedagogic, 1900-1901, and after Parker's death, its efflorescence at the continuing Francis W. Parker School, Chicago. The author suggests the influence of Francis Parker's Morning Exercise on the growth of school assemblies nationally. Finally, she describes the changes in this once pioneering practice in recent decades at Francis Parker School that, in significant ways, marks the ill-fated history of the progressive movement in general. (Contains 21 notes.)

This article features the life and accomplishments of Horace Jeremiah Voorhis in the field of progressive education. Voorhis earned the first Master of Arts degree in Education awarded by the Claremont Graduate Schools after he submitted his master's thesis, "The Education of the Institution Boy: A General Outline of Policies for the Voorhis School for Boys." Far more than the policy manual implied by the title, the thesis outlined Voorhis' thinking on the relationship between education, religion, and social reconstruction and constituted a blueprint for the development of a remarkable school. Voorhis' plan called for a confluence of progressive educational methods, political theory, and religious instruction to train a cadre of boys as the vanguard of a new social order. For ten years, from 1928 to 1938, Voorhis' vision took shape as a residential school for orphaned boys in San Dimas, California. Voorhis was just the kind of secular missionary described by Robert Crunden, and his educational experiment stands as an example of the deep idealism that motivated many progressive educators.

Dissatisfied with mandated standardized assessment modes, an Illinois elementary school began an alternative assessment program incorporating Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. The assessment process became more meaningful through using learning experience forms and "portfolio evenings," in which children present their portfolios to their parents. (MLH)

The author grew up as an Illinois farm girl, born in 1922. Both her mother and her grandmother had been teachers trained in Froebelian progressive education methods, and both knew the value of building on children's interests. At about age 9, she became interested in butterflies and made her own museum, including rocks, butterflies, and insects she collected and labeled. Her mother encouraged this kind of learning, following her lead toward increased levels of reading. She was in charge of her learning for those early years. In this article, the author shares the influence of her mother and grandmother in her profession as a teacher and discusses her idea on fostering individuality and valuing uniformity particularly in early childhood education. Questions and answers related to the author and the field of early childhood education are presented. (Contains a list of books by the author.)

The article presents the author's views on progressive education that are described in a series of letters. Her first letter is written for her eighth grade students at Francis W. Parker Schools, Chicago, Illinois, which focused on student government. She discussed the powerful opinions expressed by students. In a second letter, she wrote to the teachers of the Parker 101 course, she discussed the role the course played in her life as she understood about herself, her school and her peers. In a letter addressed to students she discussed the ineffective education system and the need for effective measures to stop schools from becoming factories that produce robots instead of individuals.

Historians have documented the dramatic battle over the mass introduction of IQ testing waged by Chicago's unionised teachers in 1924 against Superintendent McAndrew and the Chicago Board of Education. The efforts of Chicago's mid-level district administrators and their work with principals and teachers to address the real and perceived differences of the students pouring into classrooms in this era have garnered less consideration. Examining the work of district administrators responsible for the educational programmes intended to manage 'backward', 'subnormal' and 'feeble-minded' children provides a rich case to analyse how these district administrators made use of the emerging field of testing to address the educational issues they confronted. The use of testing in Chicago's schools during the early twentieth century represents a moment when the line between administrative and pedagogical progressives appeared unclear and illustrates the complexity of educators' pedagogic beliefs and practices. It offers examples of educators making use of educational testing and resisting it. This study analyses the reports of Chicago's district administrators and superintendents, who often identified as progressive educators. These administrators seemed able to question the use of testing at least in part because of the vibrant progressive reform movement that existed in Chicago during this era. Indeed, although teacher resistance complicated the use of testing on a wide scale in Chicago, the early concerns of these mid-level district administrators in the 1910s proved critical to keeping intelligence testing at bay until the mid-1920s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Dewey is well known for his progressive ideas and was credited by many historians as the father of progressive education, but where are the mothers? Dewey did not develop his ideas in isolation. Four women from Chicago were highly influential in assisting John in initiating and refining his theories. Ella Flagg Young, Jane Addams, Alice Chipman Dewey, and Anna Bryan deserve to be recognized for their contributions as "mothers" of the progressive movement and for their championing social justice issues during the late 19th and early part of the 20th centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the pervasive influence of progressive education and travel on a public school kindergarten teacher's professional life. In a statement included in her handwritten list of goals for the children in her classroom, she echoed John Dewey, noting that a kindergarten child should “.... live life fully and well because this is a year of his life and not just a time to get ready to live.”1 Kirby put this statement into practice as she translated her personal travel experiences to kindergarten children through the information she shared and the opportunities she provided for them. The children, in turn, translated her teaching back to her through their highly individual artistic creations, paintings, wood structures, and dramatic play. Kirby's teaching was grounded in progressive education as promoted in her college education, in her school district, and was further influenced by a rich lifetime of travel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explains how high schools and universities became separate entities in Illinois as a response to the Progressive era's attempts to standardized educational reform in order to distinguish college education from secondary school education. Particular attention is paid to the politicizing of high school visitors as local and state politicians vied for control over educational standards. The formation of the Office of the High School Visitor at the University of Illinois is described. The creation of national and state-level accreditation systems during this period of heightened bureaucratization of business and industrial enterprises is discussed.

The authors discuss the approaches that they used in developing their curricula for teaching students at the Francis W. Parker School in Chicago, Illinois. One of the teachers says that working with students requires a purposeful effort, which involves a deliberate and careful attention to what the students would ask. Another teacher has come to realize that the motivation for creating a new philosophy for the teaching of students seemed to be a reaction to current educational practices that they felt detrimental to the promotion of the qualities needed to engage students in purposeful lives.

The article discusses the changing philosophies of art education, particularly in public schools in Illinois. According to the author, art educators are in the position to manage the challenge of permitting the reshaping concepts of humanistic and aesthetic education for progress. She believes that as insights and opinions differ, so will art education change. She states that the changing approach towards teaching art might provide a means of broadening the art domain for the overall growth of each individual including artists. Here, it outlines several concepts designed to promote art in education.

The article reports on the annual conference of the Progressive Education Association held in Chicago, Illinois. The conference laid emphasis on the need for educating youth about larger duties of citizenship. Keynote speakers of the conference include professor Ruth Adrus, dean of Abraham Lincoln Centre Curtis Reese and professor Helen Bott. Progressive parents play an important role in progressive education. Parents should consider the needs of the less-favored children in their communities.

The article highlights the training of teachers at Chicago Normal College (CNC) in Illinois to become progressive. A teachers' college must prepare the prospective teacher to teach in society as it is organized and must lead the way to a better education. The CNC tries to maintain this balance by training teachers on three specific problems. One of the problems refers to a broad general training in the problems of life in a great city.