进步主义教育只能是乌托邦吗?——基于英国普劳登报告的省思

Progressive Education can only be a Utopia?--Based on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Plowden Report in Britain

1967年的普劳登报告,代表了二战后英国政界和公众对小学教育之兴趣的最高点,带来了学校应用"儿童中心"教育的巅峰时期。该报告的终结和进步主义教学的撤退,让我们痛苦地领教到:学校和教师不可能独自承担起社会变革的重任;教育理论和课堂实践之间存在巨大落差;对于儿童和儿童期的认识过于理想化。但是,普劳登报告中所蕴含的那些善好的教育价值观与理想、所触及的根本性问题,将做出持久贡献,激励着每一代教育者重新面对、重新估量、重新创造合适的回应。

The Plowden report of 1967 presented the peak of political and public interest in primary education in Britain since the Second World War,and it brought the zenith of applying child-centred education in primary schools.From the end of Plowden and the retreat from progressive approaches to teaching and learning,we learnt painfully the impossibility of relying on schools and teachers to fulfil the task of social reform unaided,the great divergence between educational theory and classroom practice as well as the naively idealistic concept of child and childhood.However,the educational values,ideals and fundamental concerns it raised will continue to make an enduring contribution and require each generation of educators to re-address,re-appraise and re-create appropriate responses.