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Traditional vs. Progressive Education: Benefits and Challenge

Since different students learn better with different teaching methods, administrators and educational leaders must consider the unique benefits and challenges associated with traditional versus progressive education.

Traditional education’s rigid structure allows students to grow up with a sense of organization and order. However, this benefit can also be one of its biggest disadvantages. One argument in opposition to traditional education emphasizes that traditional schools exist only to develop productive workers and eliminate individuality. Traditional education is often accused of stifling creativity, treating students as machines to be fed knowledge.1

In traditional education, the teacher leads the class from the front, whereas a more progressive teaching model sees the teacher as a facilitator who interacts with students and encourages them to think and question the world around them.

On the other hand one of the benefits of progressive education is that teachers recognize and honor the creativity and passions of individual students. Educators do not simply teach students information and expect them to memorize it and get perfect scores on tests. Instead, they have their students engage in active hands-on learning through projects, experiments, and collaboration with peers. In this way, students can pursue topics and subjects they are passionate about.

Students use critical thinking skills outside the classroom as they evaluate and reevaluate their perspectives on real-world topics and issues.

The progressive education philosophy says that educators should teach children how to think rather than relying on rote memorization. Advocates argue that the process of learning by doing is at the heart of this style of teaching. Is the best way for students to experience real-world situations, say advocates. For example, the workplace is a collaborative environment that requires teamwork, critical thinking, creativity, and the ability to work independently.2

In conclusion, traditional education emphasizes on content, structures, ordered systems, formal learning, measurable outcomes. On the other hand progressive education leans towards processes, experiences, organic systems, informal learning, intangible outcomes.

Rather than seeking to diminish the value of a discussion of traditional vs progressive dispositions, I might be suggesting that we should embrace it further so that we’re better equipped to understand how they inter-relate. The point is not to pit one against the other but to seek the best understanding of the symbiosis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOwFYiTgyCc

1.https://soeonline.american.edu/blog/traditional-vs-progressive-education

2.https://www.thoughtco.com/progressive-education-how-children-learn-today-2774713

  • Leo Olitoquit
  • Zhanar Massaliyeva