Page "Progressive education" Paragraph 52

At Columbia, Dewey worked with other educators such as Charles Eliot and Abraham Flexner to help bring progressivism into the mainstream of American education.

In 1917 Columbia established the Lincoln School of Teachers College “ as a laboratory for the working out of an elementary and secondary curriculum which shall eliminate obsolete material and endeavor to work up in usable form material adapted to the needs of modern living .” ( Cremin, 282 ) Based on Flexner ’ s demand that the modern curriculum “ include nothing for which an affirmative case can not be made out ” ( Cremin, 281 ) the new school organized its activities around four fundamental fields: science, industry, aesthetics and civics.

The Lincoln School built its curriculum around “ units of work ” that reorganized traditional subject matter into forms embracing the development of children and the changing needs of adult life.

The first and second grades carried on a study of community life in which they actually built a city.

A third grade project growing out of the day to day life of the nearby Hudson river became one of the most celebrated units of the school, a unit on boats, which under the guidance of its legendary teacher Miss Curtis, became an entrée into history, geography, reading, writing, arithmetic, science, art and literature.

Each of the units was broadly enough conceived so that different children could concentrate on different aspects depending on their own interests and needs.

Each of the units called for widely diverse student activities, and each sought to deal in depth with some critical aspect of contemporary civilization.

Finally each unit engaged children working together cooperatively and also provided opportunities for individual research and exploration.