Schools: ‘General Skills’ Method Hurting Children

Taking their lead from the spirit of the age, the progressive education reformers of the 19th century made enemies of artificiality, conformity, and external standards. Against these values they championed spontaneity, individualism, and subjectivism. The educational philosophy that metastasized out of these impulses and that has dominated American schools from the middle of the last century to the present day is called Differentiated Instruction (DI).

Advocates of Differentiated Instruction (who make up more or less the entirety of the progressive education establishment) believe that early education should be as individualized as possible, and should be tailored to the unique interests, abilities, and “learning styles” of each child. As Antonio Gramsci noted, they tend to think of “the child’s brain as a ball of string that the teacher should help to unwind.” For instance, a school operating according to Differentiated Instruction wouldn’t have set novels that every student in a given English class is supposed to read and respond to. Instead, they would let each student read what suited him. If a precocious young girl in the sixth grade wants to try her hand at George Eliot, very well. If the boy next to her wants to leaf through the Guinness Book of World Records, or a comic book, that’s equally valid. Likewise, if the boy in question has a greater proclivity for the visual than the written arts, DI advocates might allow him to draw a visual response to his text instead of writing an essay. The principle was stated most clearly by John Dewey, the St. Paul of the progressive education movement, in his “Pedagogic Creed” of 1897. “Education . . . must begin with a psychological insight into the child’s capacities, interests, and habits,” according to this creed. “It must be controlled at every point by reference to these same considerations.”

About the Author

Cameron Hilditch

Cameron Hilditch was a 2020-2021 William F. Buckley Fellow in Political Journalism at National Review Institute.

Featured Tags

Manage following

Public Schools

Taking their lead from the spirit of the age, the progressive education reformers of the 19th century made enemies of artificiality, conformity, and external standards. Against these values they championed spontaneity, individualism, and subjectivism. The educational philosophy that metastasized out of these impulses and that has dominated American schools from the middle of the last century to the present day is called Differentiated Instruction (DI).

Advocates of Differentiated Instruction (who make up more or less the entirety of the progressive education establishment) believe that early education should be as individualized as possible, and should be tailored to the unique interests, abilities, and “learning styles” of each child. As Antonio Gramsci noted, they tend to think of “the child’s brain as a ball of string that the teacher should help to unwind.” For instance, a school operating according to Differentiated Instruction wouldn’t have set novels that every student in a given English class is supposed to read and respond to. Instead, they would let each student read what suited him. If a precocious young girl in the sixth grade wants to try her hand at George Eliot, very well. If the boy next to her wants to leaf through the Guinness Book of World Records, or a comic book, that’s equally valid. Likewise, if the boy in question has a greater proclivity for the visual than the written arts, DI advocates might allow him to draw a visual response to his text instead of writing an essay. The principle was stated most clearly by John Dewey, the St. Paul of the progressive education movement, in his “Pedagogic Creed” of 1897. “Education . . . must begin with a psychological insight into the child’s capacities, interests, and habits,” according to this creed. “It must be controlled at every point by reference to these same considerations.”