Progressive Education

Ventura Charter School of Arts and Global Education utilizes a progressive approach to education. Students are encouraged to think, question, challenge, take an active role in the search for meaning, and ownership of their learning. Traditional activities such as reading from textbooks, filling out worksheets, and memorizing facts are replaced with active collaborative inquiry, critical thinking, problem solving, intrinsic motivation, and authentic assessment. We nourish curiosity, creativity, compassion, independence, and respect for diversity.

Led by John Dewey in the late nineteenth century, the progressive movement in education sought to shift the traditional goals of public education from preparing dutiful citizens and vocational workers necessary to support an industrial economy to making schools more effective agencies of a democratic society. John Dewey thought that the student should be an active participant in his/her education and not a passive receptacle for facts.

To learn more about John Dewey read Experience in Education.

To read more about progressive education click here.

"A truly impressive collection of research has demonstrated that when students are able to spend more time thinking about ideas than memorizing facts and practicing skills — and when they are invited to help direct their own learning — they are not only more likely to enjoy what they're doing but to do it better. Progressive education isn't just more appealing; it's also more productive."

--Alfie Kohn