Features
Features
Defining Progressive Education at Falk Laboratory School
Falk Laboratory School was established at the University of Pittsburgh in 1931 as a progressive demonstration school supporting childhood learning, innovative educational research, and teacher development and training. Since then, progressivism has remained at the core of Falk’ s identity for nearly 100 years, frequently guiding conversations about curriculum and practice and consistently influencing teaching philosophies within the building.
Despite being undeniably present at Falk, however, one question about progressive education continues to surface year after year: What exactly does it mean to be progressive? While some core principles— such as collaboration and child-centered teaching— are universally agreed upon, specific implementations are often more debatable. To unite the school behind a common definition and establish shared practices for new and experienced educators alike, Falk recently embarked upon a years-long journey to define progressive education at Falk.
A Closer Look at the Process
Beginning in June 2023, Director Jill Sarada began surveying faculty to see where teachers agreed on progressive practices and where further refinement was needed. Drawing from John Dewey and Alfie Kohn, two educational scholars and progressive education advocates, Sarada and the leadership team compiled a list of tenets covering everything from parent / caregiver involvement in a progressive model to the role of homework and teacher autonomy in the classroom. She then asked teachers to rate their agreement with each statement using four choices: Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, and Strongly Disagree.
Rather than striving for consensus right away, Sarada says, the first iteration was built to highlight existing points of tension and establish a clear starting point for the project.“ I decided to really push things with a series of statements that were intended to be controversial, to push people’ s thinking, so we could do a heat map.”
FALK LABORATORY SCHOOL | UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH 5