Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

We are not the first generation of scholars to concern ourselves with the implications of a new understanding of human development for educational theory and practice. Progressivism with its concern for child-centered education became a dominant theme early in the twentieth century and has fueled a passion for developmental psychology as well as a deep respect for the role of the school in promoting that development, a development that continues into the present ( Lagemann, 1989 ). Dewey's influential books—including The child and the curriculum (1902/1956) , Experience and education (1938/1972) , and Art as experience (1934/1958) — while both reporting and fostering educational reforms ( Cremin, 1964 ), encouraged us to see knowledge and experience from the child's point of view. More recent writings in that tradition—including Bruner's The process of education (1960) , Donaldson's Children's minds (1978) , and Gardner's The unschooled mind (1991) — all called for and demonstrated the possibility of a new, more humane education based on a respect for children's knowledge, interest, ability and integrity—in a word, for their conscious experience. But perhaps we are the first generation of scholars to recognize the limitations and excesses that good beginnings sometimes leave in their wake ( Gillham, 1980 ). Child-centered education never made an easy peace with the ... log in or subscribe to read full text