Crusade for democracy : progressive education at the crossroads / Daniel Tanner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tanner, Daniel, author.

Contributor:

John Dewey Society, issuing body.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

John Dewey Society--History.

John Dewey Society.

Progressive education--United States.

Progressive education.

History.

United States.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xxvi, 163 pages ; 24 cm

Edition:

Revised edition.

Place of Publication:

Albany, NY : SUNY Press, [2015]

Summary:

Attacks on public schools and efforts to impose nationalizing "reforms" are no less threatening today than they were during the era of progressive education under the conditions that gave rise to the John Dewey Society. Crusade for Democracy, Revised Edition tells the fascinating story of the Progressive Education movement of the 1930s and 1940s, whose core is the founding and early activities of the John Dewey Society for the Study of Education and Culture. In a compelling narrative, Daniel Tanner details, through close examination of the scholarly literature and heretofore unexamined archival materials, the colorful personalities and powerful philosophies of this group of educators who worked from the conviction that the struggle and growth of American democracy could not be conducted apart from the public schools. The issues to which the Society directed its attention are, he argues, perennial ones-the appropriate relationship between school and society, the purpose of education in a democracy, social inequality, textbook censorship, academic freedom, and so on. In this new edition, Tanner points to such recent phenomena as charter schools, testing mandates, and narrowed "core standards" curricula as raising the question of whether the John Dewey Society is losing its way, becoming just another philosophical society, or whether it will reclaim its legacy by advancing the democratic prospect for school and society. Book jacket.

Contents:

I On the Brink of Disaster 1

II The Formative Meetings 7

III Origins and Connections 17

IV The Last of the Founders 25

V Recollections and Retrospections 29

VI The Letters 35

VII This Ordeal of Democracy 49

VIII The John Dewey Society and The Social Frontier 55

IX The John Dewey Society and the Progressive Education Association 63

X The Problem of Purpose in the Postwar Period 81

XI New Directions 91

XII Seeking to Save Progressive Education 101

XIII The Yearbooks 109

XLV The Last of the Yearbooks and the Beginning of the Lecture Series 119

XV Perspectives and Prospects 127.

Notes:

"A publiction of the John Dewey Society for the Study of Education and Culture in commemoration of the ightieth anniversary of founding"

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781438456461

1438456468

9781438456454

143845645X

OCLC:

893668763