The revolt against the classical dissectors and drillmasterswas justified. So was the new interest in experimental science.The revolt against liberal education was not justified. Neitherwas the belief that the method of experimental science couldreplace the methods of history, philosophy, and the arts.

Neville Bennett’s Teaching Styles and PupilProgress

Informal teaching could, however, seemingly go wrong moreeasily than formal teaching.

Table 1. Progressive versus formal education

There are many things that we have to take on trust; everyminute of every day we have to accept the testimony and the guidance of thosewho are in a position to offer an authoritative view.

While the progressives think of education involving discovery and play, theformalists say that to put the emphasis on discovery is to ignore the tapestry ofestablished ideas, rules, and traditions that have been handed down to us fromcountless earlier generations.

For formalists, though, learning is, sadly, hard slog. No pain, no gain. Theycontend that it is just a fact of life that there are some things that you need tolearn the hard way. There is complex information that we need to know to whichthere is no easy route. If you want to learn to write, for example, you need tounderstand the ways in which language is put together; you need to know theglue that binds sentences—the rules for making language work. This isn’t easy,say the formalists, and you don’t ‘discover’ it.

For progressives, learning is natural; it’s happening all the time and it’s whathumans are programmed for. Children learn to talk, for example, without anyteaching at all. Progressive educators say that this learning of language providesus with a lesson: it shows that we are almost hard-wired for complex learning—it comes easily, if the circumstances for its acquisition are right. We shouldmake use of this strength, putting children in positions where they have theopportunity to think rather than telling them what to think.

For the formalists,though, it’s a process of imparting and acquiring the skills and knowledgenecessary for wellbeing and success in life. It’s about instruction and theacquisition of information and skills needed for the success of the society inwhich you live.

If there is a core theme to the formal position it is that education isabout passing on information; for formalists, culture and civilization represent astore of ideas and wisdom which have to be handed on to new generations.Teaching is at the heart of this transmission; and the process of transmission iseducation.

Oakeshott saw educationas part of the ‘conversation of mankind’, wherein teachers induct their studentsinto that conversation by teaching them how to participate in the dialogue—howto hear the ‘voices’ of previous generations while cultivating their own uniquevoices.

There are, one might say, conservativeand liberal interpretations of this world view—the conservative putting theemphasis on transmission itself, on telling, and the liberal putting the emphasismore on induction, on initiation by involvement with culture’s established ideas.

While progressive educators stress the child’s development from within,formalists put the emphasis, by contrast, on formation from without—formationthat comes from immersion in the knowledge, ideas, beliefs, concepts, andvisions of society, culture, civilization.