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Craftsmanship in Teaching (Dodo Press)

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Once, William Bagley was known as a formidable critic of John Dewey and the excesses of progressive education. Since then, Bagley has been quite unjustly forgotten, even though much of what he foresaw has come to fruition. Lack of discipline has interfered with student ability to learn, over-focus on making lessons relevant to kids lives have created students who will not tolerate learning anything outside of their immediate interest. Under-focus on the tried-and-true method of drilling and fact recall have created students who cannot think critically because they have nothing to think ABOUT. Bagley saw all of this and spoke out about it. Now that much of his warnings have shown true, Bagley's work has become even more valuable.

First, do not get the wrong impression. Bagley was not a critic of all things progressive, and was certainly not a reactionary. He simply advocated that progressivism not be pushed to excess. We don't want to be Draconian OR say no to discipline; rather, we want to use discipline sparingly but effectively. We don't want to relentlessly drill rote facts into students OR say no to drilling fact, but rather, achieve a good balance between factual learning and activity.

The first several essays display Bagley's admiration for the teaching profession. (He was, himself, a teacher and principal.) "Craftmanship in Teaching" and "Optimism in Teaching" offer exaltation of teaching and a plea for teachers never to stop believing in the potential of students. The next few essays, such as "The Test of Efficiency in Supervision," are reminders that, just as in any profession, the scientific process of trial and error must and should be employed to find out what works in the classroom and what doesn't. In an age where Dewey dressed philosophy up and called it science (a trend continuing to this day in education via "Brain Based Ways of Learning") Bagley called out progressives in education for letting their zeal outpace scientific experiment and scrutiny.

The next essays are where we get down to the business of pointing out where progrsesive education often goes wrong. In essays like "Utility in Education," Bagley warns that taking a narrow view of uitiity in education (let's teach only what will help students find jobs) one is ignoring the fact that education is also supposed to teach lessons like the value of doing hard work (regardless of whether it is immediately interesting), and exposing kids to things they might not otherwise be exposed to.

Two other essays take on similar themes - "The Possibility of Training Children to Study" and "The New Attitude Towards Drilling" - warns that the progressive trends in education may make students happier, but often avoid imparting them with good habits like studying and memorizing, skills that, while sometimes boring, are necssary well past high school.

In all of this, Bagley offers a refreshing counterbalance to the education theorists of the day like Dewey and Montessori. Before ED Hirsch and even Mortimer Adler before him, Bagley was trying to warn educators that while progrssive education had many things to offer, we would be best not to extremize it (as we did in the eighties and nineties). I leave the reader with some of my favorite quotes from this book:

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Bagley on the importance of habit building in students: "The only full-fledged law that I know of in the educative process is the law of habit-building... I am often told that this "law" is fallacious. It has differeed from some other so-called laws, however, in this respect: it alwatys works. loc. 574]

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Bagley on motivation: "The best way to promote growth in either pupils or teachers is neither to let them do as they please nor to force them to do as you please, but to get them to please to do what you please to have them do. ]loc. 664]

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BAgley on the dangers of having students learn only what interests them: "The result was a well-established prejudice [in students] against everything that was not superficially attractive and intrinsically interesting." [loc. 484]

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Bagley on drilling: "What is needed, now that we have gotten away from the lock step, now that we are happily emancipated form the meaningless thralldom of drill for its own sake - what is needed now is not less drill, but better drill." [loc. 690]

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Lastly, Bagley on progressive education: "[I]f one wishes to winthe applause of the multitude one may do it easily enough by proclaiming some new and untried plan."

How true. How true.