Reply to Are progressive schools a bad fit for parents who want to see academic progress?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]A theme of the threads in the "Private & Independent Schools", forum is parents who blame schools rather than turning the spotlight onto themselves and their kids.  It's a parents job to know their kid and find the right fit.  This is not easy and as a parent I have compassion for the difficulty of this task.  However, making the wrong choice of school for your kid does not mean that the school itself or its philosophy and pedagogy are wrong - it was simply wrong for YOUR kid.  I know we are firmly in an unfortunate era where science and research are routinely dismissed but the fact is progressivism is a philosophy and pedagogy such as workshop model and whole language are supported by research.  But just as not all researched medicines work for all patients, neither do all pedagogies work for kids.

Decide what you believe in as a parent, embark on the journey to find the right fit for your kid, and if you make the wrong choice - own it, fix it for your kid, and move on without bashing what you are moving on from.  You may be moving on but other kids and families are staying because that school and those methods work for them.  [/quote]

Right. This is why most of the posts are saying “OP, I don’t think it’s right for YOU.” [/quote]

Plenty of posts are also bashing various teaching methods.  I think that was the point of the post you are responding to.  No need to bash a whole philosophy or various teaching methods as it just means it doesn't work for "your" child so unfortunately you'll need to choose a different school.  [/quote]

I think we have plenty of evidence to bash the “progressive” methods of literacy. The whole point is that there is research on this so parents who are paying $$$$ have the right to understand this instead of all the hand-waving and smoke-blowing. [/quote]

No, what you have is plenty of anecdotal evidence that progressive methods do not work for all children.  This is the point.  There is no blanket evidence that progressive methods don't work - they don't work for some.  In the same way that Montessori doesn't work for all kids (didn't work well for mine) but that doesn't mean that Montessori doesn't work.  I'm bewildered why this is such a difficult thing for you to grasp.

Also, just to be clear and to provide a bit of background for those actually interested - whole language and phonics were never meant to be mutually exclusive.  The word "whole" in whole language was a directive for a holistic approach to reaching to include ALL of the following: phonemic awareness (phonics), semantic awareness (meaning), and syntactic awareness.   [/quote]

Do “progressive” schools use phonics though? or do they just use whole language and assure parents “it will all come together” when their children are not reading well in 1st grade? How about math? Do they claim that learning basic math facts is somehow harmful? [/quote]

Our progressive K-8 focuses heavily on phonics.  They use an O-G system.  I think other progressive schools do that now as well.[/quote]

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