#90. Differences Between Self-Directed and Progressive Education*
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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John Dewey
13 min read
Dewey is explicitly named as the leading philosopher of progressive education in the United States. Understanding his philosophy of pragmatism, his concept of experiential learning, and his influence on democratic education provides essential context for the progressive education movement the article discusses.
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Sudbury school
10 min read
The article mentions Sudbury model democratic schools as a key example of Self-Directed Education in practice. Understanding how these schools operate—with no curriculum, age-mixing, and student governance through democratic meetings—illustrates the concrete implementation of SDE philosophy.
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Unschooling
17 min read
The article identifies unschoolers as practitioners of Self-Directed Education. This educational philosophy, pioneered by John Holt, represents a radical departure from both traditional and progressive education, and understanding its principles helps clarify the SDE approach the author advocates.
Dear friends,
As many of you know, I have long been a student of and advocate for Self-Directed Education (SDE). My research and that of others convinces me that Self-Directed Education works, is eminently practical, and is far less trouble to everyone than the coercive, expensive, imprisoning, and trouble-filled educational system that we all call “standard.” I was one of the founders of the Alliance for Self-Directed Education (ASDE), which, largely under new leadership, has become a primary, valuable resource and vehicle of support for families and alternative schools pursuing this educational approach. I have conducted and published research on how children learn when allowed to pursue their own interests (e.g. here, here, and here) and follow-up studies of young adult graduates of SDE (here, here, and here). I also authored a chapter summarizing research into Self-Directed Education published by the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education (here).
Self-Directed Education, with capital letters, is the term that we coined at ASDE and is now commonly used for the educational practice of people who call themselves “unschoolers” or who attend schools or learning centers that are specifically designed to support self-direction, such as Sudbury model democratic schools, and Agile Learning Centers (Gray, 2023).
I’ve found that when I speak or write about Self-Directed Education some people mistakenly believe that I’m speaking or writing about progressive education. Progressive education has many of the same goals as Self-Directed Education, and its advocates use much of the same language, but the foundational philosophy is quite different, and the methodology is very different. In what follows I’ll review the basic tenets of progressive education, then review those of Self-Directed Education, and, finally, explain why I think the latter, not the former, will eventually become the standard mode of education.
Progressive Education
Progressive education is the term generally applied to an educational reform movement that began in the late 18th century and has waxed and waned at least twice since then. The period from about 1890 to about 1940 saw a flowering of progressive ideas in education, the birth of many progressive private schools, and some concerted attempts to bring progressive ideas into mainstream public schools. The leading philosopher of progressive education at that time, at least in the United States, was John Dewey (1859-1952). Other early progressive thinkers in education
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