Human Restoration Project explores a variety of progressive thought to move all learners toward humanity through passion, service, and empowerment.
We recommend starting with writings by any of these educators: Linda Darling-Hammond, John Dewey, Susan Engel, Paulo Freire, Henry Giroux, John Holt, bell hooks, Alfie Kohn, Jonathan Kozol, Deborah Meier, Maria Montessori, and Jean Piaget. We welcome criticism and remain open to dialogue on expanding our viewpoints further.
Interested in crowdsourcing the largest collection of progressive education research on the Internet? Submit a book, article, or research study. Please report broken links to us. All research should be looked at through a critical lens, many research studies fail to be replicated or have mixed results.
Cartus & Feldman
2022
Disturbing large-scale data showcases how American teenagers are showing increased stress leading to, and originating from, unhealthy lifestyles.
A well-documented dissertation that showcases how schools must scale progressive practices (in this case Montessori) through strong teacher support.
Guides both peer- and self- assessment, showcasing best practice in both of its utilizations. The overview emphasizes the need for change in the core structure of teaching - placing more responsibility on learners rather than the instructor.
Research indicates that ACT test results are inconsistent with the chance of college completion, yet HSGPAs are much more consistent.
On how digital media can be used to promote student voice and revolutionize the classroom, and how individualized technology platforms (e.g. MOOCs) do the complete opposite.
Details how a focus on purposeful and meaningful education naturally lends itself to mastery and student motivation.
Study shows that high-stakes testing has made no improvement to students' learning, actually demotivating and hurting outcomes.
A review of NAEP, AP, SAT, and ACT scores finds inconclusive evidence that these tests actually improve student achievement.
Study shows that students who see assessment as a test of performance and extrinsic incentives, rather than mastery and improvement, are more likely to cheat.
A history of SRO-employment in schooling and the dangers of police officer involvement in school institutions.
Explores white rage through the most explosive periods in America’s racial history, which the reader comes to understand through the brutal clarity and consistent facts of the historical narrative.
Study shows the impact on learning and achievement associating with book reading and implores teachers to issue more reading outside of school (note: not forced reading of certain things.)
Demonstrates how US textbooks promote certain groups and exclude others.
Demonstrates the different verbiage, lessons, and pedagogical styles between lower, middle, and upper class elementary schools.
Research indicating that students from different social class elementary schools were prepared for different worlds of work.
Demonstrates steps to create building- or system-wide focuses on a critical and democratic education.
Summary of how identity and social empowerment connect with (for positive and negative reasons) school.
Showcases the relationship between cultural and economic power in education.
Political, social, and cultural criticisms to offer ways of changing lives through education.
A short work that examines how bell schedules are inadequate in the US, and suggestions to change them.
Demonstrates that parents who show conditional love toward their children (e.g. withdrawing and giving based on their behavior) saw strong short-term results, but incredibly negative long-term results toward self-directed regulation and behavior.
Follows a group of adult learners through participatory curriculum development.
Provides a quick-to-understand, ready-to-read breakdown of the common assaults against public education and its workers.
An analysis of "zero tolerance policies" and their danger to students, and increased initiatives on militarization of schooling.
A graphic novel of what it means to be a "good" teacher, subverting the idea that teachers are superheroes.
A history educator comments how to pair traditional history standards, which often exclude and focus on memorization, by analyzing the curriculum and the story education wants to tell.
Study finds that American middle school students have more homework than their peers in Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. However, this did not correlate with any achievement: test scores were highest for countries assigning the least homework (Denmark, Czech Republic) and lowest for those with the most (Iran, Thailand.)
James Baldwin describes to teachers how to speak to children about the myths and truths about US history.
A series of essays by various teachers on the corporate control of education.
Summarizes the argument against the idea that homework raises achievement and testing scores (prior to the implementation of No Child Left Behind.)
Study shows how children, when left alone to develop their own structure, are better at self-directed processes in the future.
Series of interviews with teachers and parents, finding "[t]eachers and parents were unanimous about (a) the intense stress on all involved, (b) the undermining of meaningful instruction and learning, and (c) the high stakes involved."
Analyzing the use of conversation as a learning tool between teacher and student, which "rejects the view that some children fail in school because they have difficulty with language, emphasizing instead the inhibiting effects of rigid and formalized methods of teaching."
Connects Aldous Huxley and technological progress to transform learning to new heights.
An introduction to maker-space pedagogies and the value of letting students guide their learning in a learning space.
Preschool children on their first day of school given the opportunity for free play were found to decrease their distress relative to children in more structured conditions.
"An explanation to account for play behaviors which reflect the reenactment of an unpleasant event has been derived from the view that playful experiences serve to reduce anxiety."
Outlines the disconnect of human interaction and relationships in online learning, offering ways that we can ensure online learning assists all learners.
A look at how schools can integrate all subjects into one core curriculum through the use of a democratic education.
Study that showcases how people with a mindset of "grading orientation" (focused on grades) perform worse in terms of GPA and general psychology testing as opposed to those with a "learning orientation" (focused on learning.)
Showcases how important it is for a child to be exposed to nature by family experiences and distance to green spaces.
A look at how the “achievement” that homework provides (marginal test score improvement in certain grades) is not worth the emotional, social, and motivational outcomes of assignment.
An overview of how project-based learning can be used for various "soft skill" sets.
Findings indicate that 75% of all students, when asked an open-ended question about school, had negative feelings, with an emphasis on feeling tired.
PE teachers introduced to SDE curriculum felt that not only did SDE increase students’ physical activity, they were more engaged and learned more.
Presents data that students who knew they were going to teach information (active learning) were more motivated, learned more, and felt more engaged than those who simply passively received information.
Addresses the collisions of power in teaching education when establishing critical pedagogy and praxis.
Explains the specific issues of poverty and schooling in the United States, and how its a greater problem than other industrialized countries.
Overview of how poverty negatively impacts a students' ability to learn.
Curiosity is shown as closely linked to academic success, being particularly important for low-SES students.
Argues that the ideas presented in A Nation at Risk highlight the incorrect problems with America's schools, showcasing alternative problems.
Recognizing that in order to be a progressive educator, all must be explicitly anti-racist.
Counteracts the notion of what "the real world" is, and how that term is used in education.
Biesta unpacks the criticisms and limits of “what works” in what we call evidence-based educational research and practice to understand why “the dynamics of education are fundamentally different from the dynamics, of, say, potato growing or chemistry” and calls for a move toward a “values-based” model of education.
An exploration of studying rights and oppression within the classroom.
A review of practices regarding student leadership in educational settings.
This article demonstrates the reasoning and practical ways to build inclusive, safe spaces for LGBTQ+ youth.
Review of research demonstrating how high stakes testing leads to decreased performance and increased stressed, especially for students of color.
An analysis of the perceived/real forced practice of the Pledge of Allegiance within schooling.
A full review of project-based learning, its importance to education and motivation, and how to incorporate it into a classroom.
Documents the processes used to explore digital storytelling or “multimodal storytelling,”
Demonstrates how children are likely to learn a lesson through guided exploratory play, but less likely to learn any other topics if consistently guided.
On how to negotiate curriculum between student and teacher to have more progressive learning experiences.
Presents qualitative research around the use of PBIS & proposes more liberatory practices for PBIS that interrupt dominant culture discourses of normal behavior and power, and hold promise for establishing justice, rather than simply reinstating order.
For use of radical educators to recognize the systemic undermining of education.
Teacher autonomy and support from administrators and simply having great leaders is found to be one of the most valuable indicators for teacher retention.
A series of articles on the importance of cooperative learning and its implication for society at large.
A 2016 Gallup survey, “found that only half of adolescents report feeling engaged in school, and a fifth are actively disengaged. About 10 percent of students are classified as both disengaged and discouraged.”
Although data showed that students didn't necessarily pay attention more using mindfulness techniques (which may be the implementation of the study), students demonstrated a desire for these techniques taught.
Frames the present debate surrounding student learning, testing, and the broader standardized reform movement.
Study demonstrates students learning scientific principles through hands-on, inquiry-based, environmental-based learning.
Lays out a remarkable case against the ridiculous nature of college admissions programs and the dangerous pathways it leads our children on.
Details a shift from traditional discipline systems to one of dialogue. Provides a detailed analysis of discipline research and how traditionalist structures do not work.
How the sorting structure of grades leads to inequitable outcomes and reinforces privilege.
How "research-backed" remediation hurts students, especially in low-income communities.
"We argue that the current emphasis on increasing physical activity in young children to address the problem of obesity, while an important public health agenda, might be more successful if the exposure (physical activity or exercise) were promoted with different language (play) and if a different set of outcomes were emphasized (aspects of child well-being other than physical health)."
Study suggests that the less controlling the parent, and the more autonomy is supported, the less likely a child will lie.
A meta-analysis demonstrating that teacher autonomy led to student needs and self-determined motivation strongly than parental autonomy support.
Similar to Butler's first study, no grades with purely written or oral comments for improvement continued motivation for all students, whereas only students who received high grades for graded assessment had continued motivation.
When giving feedback, no grades with purely written or oral comments for improvement had the highest impact on continued motivation of students.
Provides a convincing condemnation of "positive psychology", the relatively recent scientific study of happiness.
This paper seeks an answer to the question of “What are some guiding principles of constructivist thinking that we must keep in mind when we consider our role as science teachers?”
Demonstrates how homework simply reinforces the inequities in society.
An argument against the demonization of cheaters in America, the author provides a summary of why cheating occurs and how we can fix it.
Showcases the relationship between schooling and work, which rejects the capitalist and Marxist lens of schooling.
A detailed analysis of how public education has come under attack during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Presents a theoretical overview of the connections between the changing social environment facing students and teachers and a new approach to literacy pedagogy that they call "multiliteracies."
Center for State and Local Government Excellence
2021
The vast majority of teacher respondents in a 2021 survey reported feeling stressed, high levels of burnout/fatigue, and substantial anxiety at work due to the pandemic.
A wealth of resources to empower community members to advocate to change school lunch toward healthy, student-centered food.
Overview of how competitive scoring of reading programs can diminish the reading goals of the program.
A focus on how billionaire wealth can be divested to care for America's youth.
An article discussing the use of "teaching against the grain" for student teachers to reform schooling.
A fundamental text on child developmental psychology related to inquiry-based learning.
Demonstrates the importance of "awe" to a child's learning.
An introduction to classroom restorative justice, with practical use for teachers.
Motivation, ability, and quality of instruction were found to all have important outcomes to a student's success in school, however, homework was found to be negligible or even counterproductive.
Provides a host of evidence to not assume that homework is beneficial to all learners, and that optional assignments are better pedagogical practice.
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