Features
As expected, the results were divided, with many teachers providing detailed and passionate feedback about their selected answers. Statement # 8, for instance, proposed that“ Facts, repetition, and skills should never be taught in isolation,” and while most respondents agreed that repetitive drills are not an ideal choice for learning, nearly every teacher argued that a more nuanced approach was necessary. Many pointed out that each student benefits from a unique combination of skill practice and exploration, and several teachers proposed that facts and skills, while necessary, should be interwoven with hands-on activities whenever possible.
Another major point of contention was assessing the value of grades. Over 90 % of faculty disagreed with Statement # 13 that“ The focus is on process, so assessment and evaluation are counterproductive,” and Statement # 14,“ Grading encourages students to focus on how well they’ re doing instead of what they are doing,” which resulted in an exact 50-50 split.
Reaching Consensus
Taking note of these disagreements and carefully considering the wealth of faculty comments, Sarada began working with team leaders and administrators to revise the tenets and put forth a new set for feedback. At the same time, faculty members with strong progressive affinities and curiosity about the survey process began approaching her to see how they could get involved.
“ That started the Progressive Ed Committee,” she says,“ which then led into us working on refining [ the ] tenets— using just a slight language change or a complete rewording— and running them past people again to see if we had more alignment.” As it turns out, the second survey, which was shared with teachers in November 2023, did come significantly closer to consensus. Nearly every statement received full agreement from faculty, with some debate still arising over the extent to which students facilitate their own learning and the importance of moral and democratic dispositions in education.
“ At the kid level, at the classroom level, at the grade band level, and at the school level, we kind of all [ needed ] community alignment, and I think the tenets are pushing us in that direction.”
Once again, progressive committee members and administrators used this feedback to refine the statements, sharing one last iteration with faculty in June 2024. The result was a list of 17 core tenets illustrating Falk’ s understanding of and approach to progressive education, all with an agreement rate of 93.5 % to 100 %.
Falk’ s Progressive Education Tenets in Action
In addition to clarifying Falk’ s progressive principles on paper, faculty have spent the last few years observing them in action at Falk and progressive schools throughout Pennsylvania. After each round of surveys, teachers gathered to discuss and analyze the data together, and several afternoons were spent identifying the ways tenets present themselves within the school.
Statement # 9, for example, states that“ projects, problems, and questions are essential to rich and meaningful learning,” a belief evident by the myriad art installations, wood carvings, research posters, and group projects that line the hallways on each floor. Statement # 16, which posits that everyone is a learner, comes to life each time a faculty member dives into a research question or learns something new from a student interaction.
In May 2025, several faculty members visited The Miquon School, Friends’ Central School, and The School in Rose Valley to observe progressive principles outside of Falk. Katrina Bartow Jacobs, Falk’ s research coordinator and an associate professor of practice at University of Pittsburgh, says what struck her the most about their site visits was that“ even when the physical environment was quite different, like [ at ] Miquon, which is on a more rural 11- acre property, the values of how we respect childhood and learning in community were clear.”
Kate Petrack, an Intermediate teacher and Progressive Education Committee member, noticed the same thing, saying that even when a school’ s principles were“ expressed and acted upon in different ways,” the core values and curricula remained constant.“ It was really cool to see progressive ed in different contexts, being laid out in different ways.”
EN AVANT | 2025 ISSUE