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This is why we should stop giving homework
Chris McNutt
Progressive Education
January 27, 2023
The United States must examine the underlying inequities of peoples’ lives, rather than focus on increasing schools’ workloads and lessening children’s free time for mythical academic gains that lead to little change.
Liberation from Oppression - a story of a student who, in spite of doubt, liberated himself
Andrew Franson
Progressive Education
January 24, 2023
That I can, no matter who tells me otherwise. I will be liberated through my own hands.
The Myth of Mastery Learning in Education
Sunil Singh
Progressive Education
January 4, 2023
In education, the idea that one can master many ideas in a short period of time, and be subsequently tested to confirm this delusion, is one of the first bricks in the education’s wall that must be removed.
Schools Can't Accept the Corporate Status Quo
Chris McNutt
Critical Analysis
December 21, 2022
Young people must become critical thinkers that are able to build a better world, which will involve challenging corporations that continually exploit humans, animals, and the environment for profit. If all young people believe that profit is the purpose, then our world will teeter toward collapse.
Progressive with a Capital P?
Dr. Amber Strong Makaiau
Progressive Education
December 16, 2022
When we don’t use the word “progressive” to describe a school’s philosophy or program–slowly and incrementally over time–the teachers, administrators, families, and the students become detached from the strong foundation that the progressive education tradition can provide.
Grading Gets An F: A Mathematician's Guide To The Absurdity of Numerical Assessment
Sunil Singh
Progressive Education
December 6, 2022
Grades are not only statistically useless, they have been acting as academic gatekeepers for millions of students, unjustly sorting, sifting, and selecting which students get to go where and why.
Fighting Back Against the Future
Nick Covington
Chris McNutt
Progressive Education
December 1, 2022
The simple act of having hope for a better future breaks the doom-loop and builds a platform for action.
The Only Lasting Truth is Change
Chris McNutt
Progressive Education
November 22, 2022
Like-minded educators can build friendly, hopeful spaces for young people to channel their energy toward creative rebellion against unjust systems, rather than falling prey to grifters and hate manufacturers.
Storytelling: The Soulful Road Back Home To Mathematics
Sunil Singh
Progressive Education
November 11, 2022
The road back home to mathematics, while lightly traveled, remains in wait for each one of us.
Carceral Classrooms
Jessica Hatrick
Sophie Sylla
Critical Analysis
November 8, 2022
Our work has led us to understand that classrooms, as they currently function, are carceral spaces.
Middle of Everywhere, Center of Nowhere
Sunil Singh
Progressive Education
October 30, 2022
I seem to be in the middle of everywhere. But, I feel in the center of nowhere.
The Myth of Diversity Hiring in Education
Shelley Buchanan
Critical Analysis
September 25, 2022
...if we make teaching a more attractive profession in which one can achieve a good standard of living and professional dignity, we will attract and keep minority teachers.
Designing Possibility in Schools
Paul Kim
Progressive Education
September 22, 2022
The default culture within most schools today is more transactional than transformational and dehumanizing in that students and teachers do not have the space where they can be successful without sacrificing some part of their identities.
Play's Power
Aaron Skjerseth
Progressive Education
September 6, 2022
There is nothing more human than play.
The Alt-Education Pipeline: PragerU
Robert Dickinson
Tom Cowin
Critical Analysis
August 20, 2022
Beneath this veneer, PragerU is a far-right propaganda company with a $50 million budget and 5 billion views.
Rethinking The 3 D's...
Alix Tate
Critical Analysis
August 17, 2022
Children do not need to be fixed, and when we attempt to fix them, we inherently ignore the environment the child is in.
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Ungrading
Joelle Lamboley Ostrich
Personal Reflection
July 23, 2022
A veteran teacher reflects on moving towards a democratic classroom-- with surprising results
Translanguaging as a humanizing pedagogy
Jacob Huckle
Progressive Education
July 20, 2022
Elif Shafak writes about the need to ‘tell different stories to humanize the other’; let’s tell different stories that humanize our multilingual learners as we ‘create radically human-centered classrooms’.
The Culture War in the Classroom Continues: Unpacking the Battle
Chris McNutt
Social Justice
July 12, 2022
The moment where the majority of teachers no longer care, public education will be destroyed in the United States.
Lessons Preview: Human-Centered Interdisciplinary Subject
Chris McNutt
Nick Covington
Organization Updates
June 29, 2022
This update showcases our progress on our Human-Centered Interdisciplinary Subject, a project in creating an actionable cross-disciplinary, holistic course.
Human Restoration Project Values Statements Update (2022)
Chris McNutt
Organization Updates
June 27, 2022
In creating an organization for lasting change, it's vitally important we revisit the values in which we promote a human-centered education.
Conference to Restore Humanity: The Need
Chris McNutt
Nick Covington
Organization Updates
May 21, 2022
It's past time to demand a conference model that is accessible, sustainable, and representative of the communities we serve.
On Constructionism, Makerspaces, and Music Education
Burton Hable
Progressive Education
May 20, 2022
Burton Hable imagines the role of makerspaces supported by constructionist pedagogy in music education as a way to expand and enrich the standard model for students.
What we're working on: Human-Centered Interdisciplinary Subject
Chris McNutt
Nick Covington
Organization Updates
May 18, 2022
Our goal is to answer the question: how can we prepare learners for a world that needs them to enact change?
"Current Events Do Not Belong in History Class"
Nick Covington
Social Justice
May 15, 2022
As laws targeting so-called “divisive topics” intimidate and threaten teachers for having formal conversations and curriculum on these topics, we have to ask ourselves, if we aren’t talking to kids about the impact of these deadly ideas, who is?
Enacting Change by Listening
Chris McNutt
Progressive Education
May 3, 2022
Pressing forward and armed with this knowledge, we need to bring about a grassroots movement toward change.
Toward a Better Democracy: Lessons from the Black Freedom Movement
Brian Charest
Social Justice
April 17, 2022
...our current way of organizing our schools not only alienates students from authentic learning... but also reinforces our already existing desires for authoritarianism and other antidemocratic impulses.
The Promise of Childism for Imagining Transformation: Reimagining the Future of Activism
David Charles Metler
Social Justice
April 2, 2022
To access this transformed world, we need to begin transforming ourselves.
Beyond Testing: Human Centered Approaches to Assessment
Lisa Wennerth
Progressive Education
March 6, 2022
Who are the decision makers in our classrooms and where do they come from?
A Day in the Life at Three Schools
Chris McNutt
Progressive Education
February 4, 2022
When we work together, what classrooms will we create?
Review: Teacher & Child
Chris McNutt
Media Review
February 1, 2022
This work outlines the day-to-day interactions teachers have with children, offering suggestions to solve the minute interactions that encompass most of this profession.
Empty Pedagogy, Behaviorism, and the Rejection of Equity
Chris McNutt
Critical Analysis
December 3, 2021
In our mission to be the best possible educators for young people, it is imperative that we understand the art and science of teaching beyond simple prescriptive ideas.
Can Activism Improve Arts Education?
Mario Mabrucco
Social Justice
November 27, 2021
How culturally responsive pedagogy can save high school Drama class.
Class Discussions and Classroom Climate
Lisa Wennerth
Progressive Education
November 24, 2021
It might seem counterintuitive to be thinking about classroom climate now. It is around this time that we begin to increase the amount of assessments we assign, as students are asked to grapple more deeply with course inquiries, essential questions, content skills, and unit concepts.
Building Community and Trust In A Gradeless Classroom
Theresa Walter
Progressive Education
October 20, 2021
Investment in relationships supports student voice and agency while fostering trust.
Home Free
Peter Sipe
Progressive Education
October 17, 2021
Too much school at home, too much work from home, and not enough school in school. Let’s reestablish some boundaries.
Unpacking "Neoliberal" Schooling, Part 3: Progressive Education: Enter the Matrix
Chris McNutt
Critical Analysis
September 25, 2021
Instead of finding ways to fight fire with fire through more critique, we deviate from the norm in ways that confuse, conflate, and separate ourselves from the narrative. Baudrillard-inspired theorist Franco Berardi writes, "the best thing to do is to make friends with chaos."
Going Gradeless This Year? Just Thinking About It? Start Here.
Theresa Walter
Progressive Education
August 5, 2021
Try these 3 strategies to get gradeless assessment practices going in your classes.
The Surprise Growth in an Ungrading Practice: My Own
Theresa Walter
Progressive Education
August 5, 2021
I found more growth in my own practice than I ever anticipated in my first full year of abandoning traditional grading systems.
A Primer for the Progressive Educator
Sean Michael Morris
Progressive Education
August 3, 2021
To be a progressive educator is to never really leave behind that restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.
Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave: How the Testing Industry Manufactured the "Learning Loss" Narrative
Chris McNutt
Critical Analysis
July 2, 2021
In the wake of pandemic schooling, the testing industry sees an opportunity to sell schools on assessments and interventions that line their pocket-books, but do their claims live up the cost?
Review: Equity-Centered, Trauma-Informed Education
Chris McNutt
Social Justice
June 25, 2021
Alex Shevrin Venet's Equity-Centered, Trauma-Informed Education is a masterful work which inspires a systemic look at the injustices in classrooms, schools, and communities.
How Teachers Can Start a Grassroots Revolution for Better Schools
Chris McNutt
Progressive Education
June 23, 2021
The Biden Administration offers a space for educators to demand transformation. But that does not mean that we can count on better outcomes coming from the federal government.
Binary Solutions to Systemic Problems
Chris McNutt
Progressive Education
May 28, 2021
This year has highlighted that there is a continual issue with equity in education; and that there’s a serious problem with the way schooling in general is tackling the issues we face today.
Review: We Do This 'Til We Free Us
Chris McNutt
Media Review
May 23, 2021
Mariame Kaba's collection of writings, We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice is a perfect encapsulation of understanding the carceral network, the importance of organizing, and counteracting inhumane systems.
100 Days of Conversations: Amplifying Communities to Reimagine Education
Chris McNutt
Organization Updates
May 14, 2021
In our pilot, we explored a reimagination of this project as a result of the pandemic, while simultaneously recognizing that the American education system was already in need of change.
Review: Flow - The Psychology of Optimal Experience
Nick Covington
Media Review
March 31, 2021
Csikszentmihalyi’s blind spot is a critical one: that poverty is a cause of inattention and a lack of cognitive resources, not an effect.
Gradeless: An English Teacher’s Journey Towards Agency Through Feedback
Theresa Walter
Progressive Education
March 19, 2021
I knew I wanted to do my best to represent student growth in the most accurate way I possibly could. While I know my methods are far from perfect, I have seen remarkable growth and a complete shift in focus in my students.
Learning from Games: Making Decisions for Others
Chris McNutt
Progressive Education
March 12, 2021
Even the most well-intentioned changes can have horrific outcomes.
COVID-19 Brought Us Closer
LaTanya Coleman-Carter
Personal Reflection
February 20, 2021
For the most part, my middle child and I are vastly different and it usually causes us trouble in our relationship. But Coronavirus has brought us closer.
Grades as the Gatekeeper to Privilege in Schools
Shelley Buchanan
Critical Analysis
January 15, 2021
Despite the initial purpose of grades being an assessment of learning, schools often use grades as a sorting mechanism within the school’s social structure.
The Dark Underbelly of School Remediation
Shelley Buchanan
Critical Analysis
January 4, 2021
Too often, we hear calls for research-based remediation for struggling schools and students. And too often, these are the students and schools that are in low-income, struggling neighborhoods.
Review: We Want to Do More Than Survive
Vineeta Singh
Media Review
December 19, 2020
Love’s approach to teaching invites us to build our pedagogical praxis around civic engagement and intersectional justice so we can move past reformist paradigms and practice educational freedom.
Review: A Wolf At the Schoolhouse Door & the Unmaking of Public Education
Nick Covington
Media Review
December 4, 2020
What are the tenets guiding the unmaking of public education, what are the aims of the unmakers, and what is there for the rest of us to be worried about?
Review: Manufacturing Happy Citizens
Chris McNutt
Media Review
November 12, 2020
Manufacturing Happy Citizens: How the Science and Industry of Happiness Control Our Lives by Edgar Cabanas & Eva Illouz provides a convincing condemnation of "positive psychology", the relatively recent scientific study of happiness.
One Teacher Can't Save the World
Nick Covington
Chris McNutt
Social Justice
October 28, 2020
What is it about the world that is worth preparing students for, and are we dedicated to the work of building that better world alongside them?
A Teacher's Case for Critical Race Theory
Nick Covington
Social Justice
October 14, 2020
What is this “toxic propaganda” the White House and Senate are taking action over, and what are the consequences of having CRT banned from our schools and public institutions?
We Need to Think Critically About How the Pandemic is Impacting Our Schools
Dan Kearney
Critical Analysis
October 9, 2020
As schools adjust to the reality of Covid, it’s vital that educators stand up for what’s in the best interest of students, teachers, and learning.
Language and literacy teaching with games: the “who” and transformative actions
Jonathan deHaan
Progressive Education
September 2, 2020
This is a narrative of my process of trying to make a real difference for and with my students. I describe what I struggled with, how I framed transformation for my context, and how I try to work with students in order to see them change over the course of my teaching projects.
Review: Radical Teacher, Academic Journal
Chris McNutt
Media Review
August 23, 2020
Published by the University of Pittsburgh, Radical Teacher is a self-described socialist, feminist, and anti-racist journal founded in 1975. Since 2013, the entire publication is accessible for free online, double peer-reviewed, and filled with in-depth articles.
The Time Has Chosen US
Jacqueline Nelson
Social Justice
August 19, 2020
Drawing from my years as a kindergarten teacher, when it comes to talking about disparities and inequalities, I find simplicity and practice are essential to the learning process and the ability to empathize, no matter what our differences or how we see the world.
Hindsight
Lisa Demro
Social Justice
August 14, 2020
We don’t know what the world will look like, but this will be another chapter in our lives that will end and upon which we will be able to look back.
Liberatory Learning: Dismantling the Hidden Curriculum
Nick Covington
Chris McNutt
Progressive Education
August 11, 2020
This is a recap of our asynchronous professional development session, where we worked as a cohort to develop actions and solutions for equitable practices in our classrooms.
Endorsing Student Voice Through Virtual/Hybrid Activism
Nick Covington
Chris McNutt
Progressive Education
August 1, 2020
This is an overview of our August 1st Summit with Inspire Citizens (Donna Guerin, Steve Sostak, Kavita Tanna), Out of the Blocks (Aaron Henkin, Wendel Patrick), and Evan Whitehead!
Creating a Virtual, Liberatory Feedback-Driven Classroom
Nick Covington
Chris McNutt
Progressive Education
July 31, 2020
This past week, Human Restoration Project has had the honor of presenting this workshop on ungrading and liberatory pedagogy at Digital Pedagogy Lab 2020. Here's an overview of the activities we covered, what we learned, and resources to share!
Review: At What Cost?
Dan Kearney
Media Review
July 21, 2020
David Gleason paints a dire picture of the pressure we put on adolescents and convincingly insists that it is us - and not the students - who need to change.
"No Hats Allowed" - A Euro-Centric Tradition that Upholds the Racist Practices Embedded in Colonialism
Alicia Huculak
Critical Analysis
July 17, 2020
We must look at our practices from an equitable, anti-racist, and trauma-informed stance, rather than considering what we have always done out of sheer tradition.
Team 1 and Team 5
Matthew Byars
Progressive Education
July 9, 2020
One of the ways I do this is by making up games, like a lot of teachers do, and because I’m an English teacher, they’re often designed so kids can get practice on basic grammatical skills. And maybe we’ll find there’s more to playing — and “winning” — the game than acquiring skills.
That Baseball Study Can’t Tell You How to Teach
Thomas White
Critical Analysis
June 29, 2020
The baseball study is a 1988 article frequently cited to support pedagogies based around highly-structured teacher-led classrooms.
Universal Design for Fishing
Nick Covington
Progressive Education
June 15, 2020
No analogy is perfect, but I think we can use fishing as an example of an experience where the philosophy of universal design, combined with the support of experienced and conscientious adults, can help us develop a classroom learning experience that achieves the goal of UDL.
Unpacking “Neoliberal” Schooling, Part 2: Teachers Pay Teachers
Chris McNutt
Critical Analysis
June 15, 2020
While Teach Like a Champion, the bestselling secondary education book, trains teachers to control students through behavioral compliance, Teachers Pay Teachers — generally — trains teachers to control students through “fun” activities, worksheets, and slideshows.
Death and Teaching: COVID-19 and the Return to School
Chris McNutt
Critical Analysis
June 10, 2020
It's a grim time in the United States.
Review: Radical Hope
Nick Covington
Media Review
June 8, 2020
What we absolutely can and should do, however, is define our work as educators biased toward life-affirming, student-centered, inclusive praxis and create a space where we can do the work of reversing the decomposition... a Radical Hope.
Review: “You Can’t Fire the Bad Ones!”
Chris McNutt
Media Review
June 7, 2020
“You Can’t Fire the Bad Ones!” And 18 Other Myths About Teachers, Teachers’ Unions, and Public Education by William Ayers, Crystal Laura, and Rick Ayers provides a quick-to-understand, ready-to-read breakdown of the common assaults against public education and its workers.
Teaching Anti-Racism Isn’t “Progressive.” It’s Essential.
Lisa Demro
Personal Reflection
June 1, 2020
I always considered myself pretty “progressive,” but to be honest, I turned a blind eye to the world’s many issues because those things just didn’t seem to happen where I’m from: a predominantly white, rural community that was always a little behind on the times.
Review: The Art of Critical Pedagogy
Chris McNutt
Media Review
May 18, 2020
The Art of Critical Pedagogy provides an overview of the concept of critical pedagogy, showcases why it is needed in urban contexts, and provides three case studies of what it actually looks like in practice.
The Runaway Bunny-Allegory for Ego
Brennan Dignan
Media Review
May 8, 2020
I am going to spend the remainder of this (whatever this is) post on a different level of analysis: deconstructing the ego and why it’s so important in our work as progressive educators
Unpacking “Neoliberal” Schooling
Chris McNutt
Critical Analysis
May 6, 2020
Within the school system, neoliberalism rears its head in the standardized testing-, marketing-, and curriculum-complex, where each assessment, packaged idea, and educational buzzword is sold for high profits.
Teachers are Not the Heroes
Thomas White
Social Justice
April 29, 2020
It’s time to fight adultism and re-center the wants and needs of students.
What do you value in your space and how do values guide your practice?
Mark Barnett
Progressive Education
April 19, 2020
What I have found in most cases is that the smaller, less funded spaces seem to be more value driven, purposeful and goal oriented, while many of the larger, well funded spaces seem to just be a showroom floor of the best technologies and equipment.
Review: The Right to Learn: A Blueprint for Creating Schools That Work
Chris McNutt
Media Review
April 15, 2020
Darling-Hammond’s work, which is nearly 400 pages with 200 citations, is a formative review of inner-working and issues within the United States education system, and perfectly captures the need for progressive policies.
Drop the College Board
Chris McNutt
Critical Analysis
April 9, 2020
It’s clear that the College Board is not only grossly overfunded and a waste of money, bordering on corruption, but a completely unethical, inequitable, and useless indicator of college preparedness.
Range and the "Wicked" World
Nick Covington
Media Review
March 31, 2020
Do specialists actually get better with experience or not, and is narrow, deliberate practice the only way to achieve greatness in a given field?
Building a Student-Centered Third Place
Chris McNutt
Progressive Education
March 25, 2020
Even though I don’t usually interact in these spaces, the feeling of being surrounded by other people and being apart of a greater societal culture is enlivening.
Remote learning isn’t dehumanizing education, we’ve already done that
Tegan Morton
Critical Analysis
March 20, 2020
...technology or even the specter of an AI super-teacher can’t dehumanize education, because we’ve already dehumanized it all by ourselves.
Simplification: School Policies and Practices to End During COVID-19
Chris McNutt
Progressive Education
March 15, 2020
It is our responsibility as educators to ensure that all students are supported through this event. It will take proactive, decisive planning and decision-making by teachers to make this happen.
What’s in a grade? GRExit, GPA, College Admissions, and the Mastery Transcript (oh my!)
Nick Covington
Progressive Education
March 4, 2020
In this article I’ll look at the movement of undergrad and graduate programs away from standardized assessments, unpack new research into our assumptions about standardized test scores as predictors of college completion, and challenge listeners to re-rethink “What’s in a grade?”
Why “What Works” Won’t Work and Why “What Works” May Hurt
Nick Covington
Critical Analysis
March 2, 2020
In this article I’ll unpack the criticisms and limits of “what works” in what we call evidence-based educational research and practice.
Review: The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning
Chris McNutt
Media Review
February 9, 2020
The End of Homework by Etta Kralovec and John Buell offers a succinct and researched account of why homework does little to actually improve academic performance, and instead hurts a family’s overall well-being.
A Progressive Response to “Ed. Reform’s Lost Decade”
Nick Covington
Critical Analysis
January 30, 2020
For those who believe the measure of a quality education can be distilled into an assessment score, the last 20 years of data must be intensely disappointing.
Review: The Case for Constructivist Classrooms
Nick Covington
Media Review
January 27, 2020
...constructivism has been a consistent but controversial and often caricatured counterweight to the recurring top-down reform movements — rooted in accountability and standardized test scores — that have defined the last 30 years of the educational debate.
Loving Care
Brennan Dignan
Personal Reflection
January 23, 2020
It was about six months ago that I was introduced to Wendell Berry’s writing through a reference in a Michael Pollan book. In this book, Pollan points to Berry’s concept of eating as an agricultural act. There was something about this concept that sparked in me a desire to learn more.
Remaking Professional Development
Chris McNutt
Progressive Education
December 28, 2019
Professional development in education is defective and I think almost everyone knows it...PD tends to promote fads, one-and-done workshops, and the latest district initiative that fails to make any long-lasting change.
Revisiting Disobedience Instruction as Classroom Structural Change
Chris McNutt
Social Justice
December 20, 2019
Accounted by Jonathan Kozol in On Being a Teacher, disobedience instruction is teaching students how to say “no” toward teacher authoritarianism or counter a teacher’s sweeping political statements.
Honoring the truth: The Dishonor in Spiritual Bypassing the State of Education
Traci Nicole Smith
Critical Analysis
December 2, 2019
Overpositivity betrays the veracity of the challenges faced in high-poverty schools. The dismissal minimizes the reasons to institute broad changes to the school system.
Review: The Labor of Lunch: Why We Need Real Food and Real Jobs in American Public Schools
Chris McNutt
Media Review
November 17, 2019
The Labor of Lunch by Jennifer E. Gaddis is a treatise on the United States school lunch system: its history, battle over nutritional quality, and those who are fighting to change it.
Review: An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People
Chris McNutt
Media Review
November 3, 2019
An Indigenous Peoples’ History consistently poses questions that counteract misinformation about Native communities, specifically stories that are usually taught in elementary school.
As They Say in Arkansas
Brennan Dignan
Personal Reflection
October 30, 2019
Deeply embedded and out of site, it operates in the shadows pointing its big fat finger at the student. I would express it somewhat imperfectly like this: the system is fine, deal with it.
Career Ready Kindergarten
Abe Moore
Critical Analysis
October 12, 2019
There is a growing misconception that giving a child the best start in life means unlocking their academic potential as early as possible.
Review: The Schools Our Children Deserve
Nick Covington
Media Review
September 26, 2019
In contrast with the methods books I had read for coursework and professional development, Kohn’s voice spoke to me with an urgency, a moral weight and clarity which framed dry topics.
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