157 Chris Higgins P H I L O S O P H Y O F E D U C A T I O N 2 0 0 8 Turnings: Toward an Agonistic Progressivism 1 Chris Higgins University of Illinois INTRODUCTION It is remarkable just how many of our educational debates ultimately resolve into the same basic dilemma: should the student follow the direction of the teacher, or should the teacher follow the lead of the student? That we are tired of this distinction, and the labels “traditional” and “progressive” that typically mark it, does nothing to lessen its grip on us. While it might appear that this debate has finally ended, since a broadly progressive view does seem to have won the day in the majority of teacher education programs, this ignores the crucial fact that the traditional view seems alive and well in the schools themselves. As evidence for this I cite what I take to be an observable fact: at this very moment, thousands of small children are delightedly practicing classroom management techniques on their even smaller siblings. Whether we read this simply as an innocent rehearsal of the day’s events or, following Freud, as an active reworking of a trauma suffered passively, the upshot remains the same. 2 Whenever they play school, kids offer us their ingenuous read on schooling: school is the place where teachers give directions and students follow them. The emperor of progressive education appears to be, if not naked, at least scantily clad. Indeed, if Hannah Arendt is right, this central dilemma of modern pedagogy is inseparable from the central dilemma of modernity itself: the crisis of authority. 3 Because freedom and autonomy are central to who we are as moderns, and authority is central to education, every modern educational vision somewhere shows the strain of weaving these opposing concepts together. Progressive views tend to disavow authority, claiming that the direction of growth is supplied by the student. When the progressive teacher releases her grip, however, s/he often finds not distinctive individuals with robust projects, but conformists with consumer cravings. Authority then creeps back into such theories in concepts like the “best self.” Such concepts allow teachers to disregard a student’s manifest interests while still claiming to be following the student’s true interests. Thus we are back to a hierarchical pedagogy with the teacher claiming a superior vision of the good; only it is worse because it is disguised. 4 Meanwhile, the traditionalist downplays the freedom and interest of the student, only to see teaching preempted by the twin tasks of classroom management and motivation. Group dynamics tells us that whenever a system must contain conflicts which it cannot resolve, we should expect to find subgrouping. 5 In education, we find administrators speaking for discipline and teachers speaking for freedom. Or the split recurs within the teaching corps itself, with seasoned teachers stressing skills while the newly minted call for meaning-making. We could take an even broader view and note, with Richard Rorty, how socialization tends to dominate the project of K–12 schooling while individuation gets pride of place in (nonvocational) higher Higgins, Chris. "Turnings: Towards an Agonistic Progressivism." In Philosophy of Education 2008, edited by R. Glass, 157-165. Urbana: Philosophy of Education Society, 2009.