Nearly 100 years ago, Elisabeth Irwin, a student of one of America’s great philosophers, social worker, travel writer, and adventurer, offered a bold proposal. She suggested that she would create a classroom within a public school with the same number of students and the same level of funding as was typical for the time. Using her “new methods,” her progressive methods, her students would, she posited, outperform those students in more traditional classrooms. What happened in her progressive classroom? Maybe more importantly, how do we express Miss Irwin’s progressive principles today in the school that grew out of what Elisabeth Irwin always referred to as her experiment?
During our admissions process, we engage in conversations about LREI’s mission, about our underlying principles, and the benefits of our progressive program. I hope that you are seeing these in your children’s experiences each day in school and in their lives outside of school as this is truly the goal – educating for school and for “life.” I want to use this week’s message to the community, and a few others that will arrive in the coming months, to share some thoughts on what continues to make the progressive difference, nearly 100 years later, and why we feel that these are essential experiences and skills to develop on the journey towards a fruitful and successful future.
Within each school year and across the span of a 14-year LREI experience:
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Students develop an extensive set of academic and intellectual skills, and deep content-area understanding and knowledge.
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LREI connects the classroom to the world, answering the question, “How does what I am learning today help me today and in my future?” We are not only teaching to add to ongoing school success, but also to help students make sense of their very complex world. An LREI education supports growth in individual agency and citizenship.
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Much is said about our “community.” Agreed a strong community feels good and is essential to being a good person, but it is important to remember that the value of community is at the center of progressive practice and learning. If students feel trusted and trustworthy, if they are supported and celebrated, than the experience of learning is centered, and students are able to work to solve problems and, as our mission requires, bring meaningful change to the world.
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Our students learn to hold more than one point of view, one lived experience, in their minds at the same time – embracing the overlap and making sense of the dissonance.
It is important to emphasize that while there are times when these four elements are seen as individual efforts, more often than not they are intertwined, adding their individual relevance to that of others, adding strength and flexibility, like a rope made of a number of sturdy fibers, the whole being stronger than the sum of its parts.
In the coming months, I will share thoughts with you addressing ways in which we meet LREI’s mission and each of the objectives listed above over the span of 14 years, in age- and developmentally-appropriate ways.
Thank you in advance for making time to read these thoughts and for engaging in conversations about them.
All best,
