Posted in Articles
Reggio Schools in Italy are the current fad that is attracting the attention of our country’s pre-schools and government schools. Every year, 500 Americans visit Italy to experience the schools that have “captivated educators across this country.” What’s the big deal? They “eschew traditional lesson plans and instead encourage 4- and 5-year-olds to develop their own projects.” This is exactly the methodology of our “progressive” American school system that has contributed to its demise. Even the article admits that academically, Italian children are no better than Americans when it comes to their abysmal achievement results (15th place) as compared to other industrialized countries. Read article here.
What we have here is the same, old, tired, child-directed methodology that has been the bane of Western education for decades. This has been an outgrowth of the “naturalism” philosophy that began in the early 1800’s. According to E.D. Hirsch in his article, “Why Do We Have a Knowledge Deficit?” the idea of “naturalism” has led to the application in our schools, where children should be allowed to “develop” and “grow” “naturally,” which is best exhibited by the child initiating and conducting his own learning. Thus, we have whole-word reading “instruction” by which children learn to read – yes, that’s right - by simply reading! In addition, “facts” are no longer important, rather a child’s “experiences” are what counts. Little or no formal teacher-instruction or the learning of “mere” facts, but natural, child-directed learning “experiences” are now the norm.
This “anti-intellectualism” has since permeated American education right on up through our university system, which now produce only four proficiently literate graduates out of every ten.
