Progressive education, or educational progressivism, is a pedagogical movement that began in the late 19th century and has persisted in various forms to the present. In Europe, progressive education took the form of the New Education Movement. The term progressive was engaged to distinguish this education from the traditional curricula of the 19th century, which was rooted in classical preparation for the early-industrial university and strongly differentiated by social class. By contrast, progressive education finds its roots in modern, post-industrial experience. Most progressive education programs have these qualities in common:
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt was a German philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1949, the university was named after him and his younger brother, Alexander von Humboldt, a naturalist.
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi was a Swiss pedagogue and educational reformer who exemplified Romanticism in his approach.
The Little Red School House and Elisabeth Irwin High School, also referred to as LREI, is a school in Manhattan, New York City. It was founded by Elisabeth Irwin in 1921 as the Little Red School House and is one of the city's first progressive schools. Created as a joint public-private educational experiment, the school tested principles of progressive education that had been advocated since the turn of the 20th century by John Dewey. The founders postulated that the lessons of progressive education could be applied successfully in the crowded, ethnically diverse public schools of the nation's largest city.
In late modern philosophy, neo-Kantianism was a revival of the 18th-century philosophy of Immanuel Kant. The neo-Kantians sought to develop and clarify Kant's theories, particularly his concept of the thing-in-itself and his moral philosophy.
John Haden Badley was an English author, educator, and founder of Bedales School, which claims to have become the first coeducational public boarding school in England in 1893.
Democratic education is a type of formal education that is organized democratically, so that students can manage their own learning and participate in the governance of their educational environment. Democratic education is often specifically emancipatory, with the students' voices being equal to the teachers'.
Abbotsholme School is a co-educational private boarding and day school. The school is situated on a 140-acre campus on the banks of the River Dove in Derbyshire, England near the county border and the village of Rocester in Staffordshire. It is a member of the Society of Heads and is a founding member of the Round Square conference of schools.
European universities date from the founding of the University of Bologna in 1088 or the University of Paris. The original medieval universities arose from the Roman Catholic Church schools. Their purposes included training professionals, scientific investigation, improving society, and teaching critical thinking and research. External influences, such as Renaissance humanism, the discovery of the New World (1492), the Protestant Reformation (1517), the Age of Enlightenment, and the recurrence of political revolution, enhanced the importance of human rights and international law in the university curricula.
Elisabeth Friederike Rotten was a Quaker peace activist and educational progressive.
Staatliches Landschulheim Marquartstein is a Gymnasium located in Marquartstein, southern Bavaria, Germany. The school offers a science- and technology-oriented program as well as another one focused on language.
Minna Specht was a German educator, socialist and member of the German Resistance. She was one of the founders of the Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund.
Dr Cecil Reddie was a reforming English educationalist. He founded and was headmaster of the progressive Abbotsholme School.
Fifty Years of Freedom: A Study of the Development of the Ideas of A. S. Neill is a 1972 intellectual biography of the British pedagogue A. S. Neill by Ray Hemmings. It traces how Homer Lane, Wilhelm Reich, Sigmund Freud and others influenced Neill as he developed the "Summerhill idea", the philosophy of child autonomy behind his Summerhill School. The book follows Neill's early life and career in rural, Calvinist Scotland and continues through the influence of his mentors, Lane and Reich, and the origins of Summerhill after World War I. Written fifty years from Summerhill's founding, Fifty Years is a sociological and historical analysis of Neill's ideas in the context of intellectual and educational trends both during Neill's life and at the time of publication. Hemmings also surveyed progressive school leaders about Neill's impact on the field and reported their perception of influence on teacher–pupil relations. Fifty Years was first published in England in 1972 by George Allen and Unwin and was later renamed Children's Freedom: A. S. Neill and the Evolution of the Summerhill Idea for its 1973 American publication by Schocken Books.
Martin Luserke was a progressive pedagogue, a bard, writer and theatre maker. He was one of the leading figures of German progressive education and a precursor of outdoor education. As his distinguished achievement counts the integration of community theatre into school and youth work. It was also integrated in German Youth Movement.
Abbotsholme College was an open-air private school in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It operated from 1908 to 1925 in the suburb of Killara. Pupils during the school's brief existence included two future prime ministers, William McMahon and Harold Holt.
Gustav Wyneken (1875–1964) was a German pedagogue and founder of the Wickersdorf Free School Community. He was also a leader in the German Youth Movement and briefly contributed to school policy during the German revolutionary period after World War I. He failed to regain support for his school reform ideas after his conviction as a pederast.
The German rural boarding school movement is a model of rural boarding school education designed to function more like a live-in community than traditional schooling models. The German pedagogue Hermann Lietz provided the philosophical underpinnings for the movement to create these schools in the early 20th century.
The Wickersdorf Free School Community was a progressive school in Germany, founded by Gustav Wyneken and Paul Geheeb in 1906.
Amy Garrett Badley was an English educator, suffragist, co-founder of Bedales School, and a vice president of the National Council for Equal Citizenship.
