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eformeducation, a never ending story?

During the past 20^th century we had three waves of explosive reform in education.

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he first wave arose around the beginning of the 20^th century, between 1900 and 1920. Educationalists and parents were very critical about the traditional school of the 19^th century. This school laid too much emphasis on the role of discipline. The terrible drama of the first world war accelerated the thinking about the role of discipline. People slathered each other on command. More freedom was the wish of many people. The Romantic idea of total freedom, inspired by his Godfather Rousseau, became of utmost interest. Many experiments were undertaken, like “Jasnaja Poljana” in Russia (By Lev Tolstoy) and in the Netherlands “Walden” by the Dutch writer Frederic van Eeden.

A group of educationalists united themselves in the “New Educational Fellowship”, chaired by the French Educationalist Adolphe Ferrière. All experimented with freedom in their systems. From the many participants only some succeeded in establishing a school system that still remains in our educational landscape: Freinet, Jenaplanschool (from Peter Petersen) Dalton (Helen Parkhurst), Montessori and more or less (although not a member of the Fellowship): Rudolf Steiner with the Waldorf School. In almost every country there are examples of schools from this period. In the Netherlands for example there were the schools of Theo Thijssen, Haanstra, Jan Ligthart and Kees Boeke. Only the last school still remains in the Netherlands.

It’s striking that amongst this stayers there is not a fully romantic model in which children are completely free. The ideas of the so called Reform educationalists spread over the world, without having real impact on the national educational systems.

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he second wave started in the seventies. Students opposed against the authoritarian middle class society. In many countries there were student movements, starting anti authoritarian schools. Again the romantic ideal of total freedom became of interest. Many so called hippies formed their own schools, where children grew up in almost total freedom. Only some schools of this typed remained. In England for instance “Summerhill School” from Neill. In the United States “Sudbury Valley”was grounded on these neo romantic ideas.

In Germany the famous “Laborschule” was established: moderate freedom on a humanistic and democratic basis. The school was also a laboratory within the University of Bielefeld.

In Denmark the so called “Travelling Highschool” in Tvind became a famous institute, with the idea of taking the world as one large learning environment, to be discovered by research and travelling.

Ivan Illich, working in Latin America, writes his famous book “School is dead”. He predicts that, if there would be some network between people, the tradional school will collapse soon.

It is too much an institute for the rich, in his conception.

In the Netherlands the so called “EGO” schools were established, partly based on ideas from the reform education of 1920. A revival of the “traditional reform schools” from 1920 was also observable, during this second wave. Research was done after the effects of the romantic approach. The Dutch government obliged her schools to write a school plan in which they had to make clear what philosophy the school ahs and how it is brought in practice. Many schools took elements from the reform schools of 1920 mixed up with new elements. However this eclectically construction of school plans lacked a profound grounding in many cases. Sometimes a plan consists of a collection of didactical isolated techniques, not grounded in a solid philosophy, like the traditional reform educators did.

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he third wave came around the millennium change. In spite of the increased freedom for children and the movement towards adaptivity, written down in school plans, many parents observe a lack of practical implementation of these ideas. It often remains too much paper instead of becoming reality. The educational systems of many countries are showing dual elements, bringing teachers in a difficult position. On the one hand there is an urge to compete with other European countries and on the other hand a growing need for more welfare and personal creativity. So freedom against the need to control, to test, and regulate.

For the third time parents and teachers grasp the romantic idea and start creating schools where children are completely free. In the Netherlands there is a rapid growing movement, based on the ideas of Sudbury Valley. It is called “Iederwijs”.

Reggio Emilia, the experiments of Rebecca Wild and her husband, the holistic school… it are just a few examples of the fast growing third wave.

New is the role of ICT. The network, predicted by Illich, has become a fact and many children leave the schools. They are educated at home. Parents observe that their children can learn with pleasure and in more freedom at home than in school. The role of school and teachers is under discussion. As an average the results of the so called home education are better than in tradional schools. Also in secondary education there is a growing amount of experimenting schools. The majority of them grasps back to ideas from the first or second wave. As there is alack of classification, many people think that there ideas are totally new. They are often unaware of the two waves before.

In the Netherlands this educational wave gets the name “het nieuwe leren”

• in all waves there are strong romantic starting points. A better world and more freedom leads to appreciation of romantic ideas. Educational systems should provide maximum freedom and tend to be a model for a better society.
• the majority of the schools disappear after some years; only a minority remains vivid. They succeed in creating a complete system and spreading the ideas.
• the group starting the wave consists of educationalists (1920), students (1970) or parents (2000) or a mixture of it.
• parents play an important role in the movements
• active participation, authentic learning, cooperative learning versus individualistic learning, group versus individual are basic components of every wave
• basic ideas behind all waves are: materialism versus idealism; political ideas like liberalism, humanism, socialism are present.
• the connection between home and school is fostered during all waves. ICT enables an acceleration
• governments do not know, after a century, how to handle these waves of reform.
• movements are in many cases international and tend to cooperative communities

Ø Towards an elementary overview.

Ø Towards an overview with an emphasis on the Dutch situation.