Student Teaching Experience — by Morgan Land My experience with progressive education started with student teaching at Wickliffe Progressive Elementary in Upper Arlington, Ohio. I spent months anxiously waiting on where I would be placed for student teaching and never did it cross my mind that the school would follow a progressive philosophy. When I received the email that stated I would be placed at Wickliffe, I immediately googled what a progressive school was. Google gave me very basic definitions of what progressive education is and I just couldn’t believe that this isn’t something we learned more about in the course work of my masters program.
“I now look at education as a chance to create a community with my students where we can learn from each other and not one where I stand and lecture for six hours a day. ”
My wonderful host teacher was supportive in helping me understand what it means to be a progressive teacher. Through readings, such as Loving — Morgan Land Learning by Tom Little and Katherine Ellison, I slowly started to grasp what progressive education was, but when I was asked by peers what it was, I couldn’t give a specific definition until after I was immersed in the practices. Throughout the three months of student teaching, I learned more about progressive education and myself as an educator than I could have imagined. I have never experienced school the way I experienced it at Wickliffe. Students were a part of the decisions within our room, it felt more like a community than it did a classroom. When I was an elementary student we were given the classroom rules, told how the room was run, and given assignments to do without a choice. This is not how Wickliffe was run, students were a part of every decision from classroom rules to helping come up with activities for our lessons. The school was entirely student-centered and that inspired me as an educator to continue this way of thinking into my next position. Wickliffe did more for me than just cross off a requirement to graduate. This school taught me that students should have a voice in their education and rather than playing the role of the teacher, I can play a role as a peer and mentor in our classroom community. When I am asked now for a definition of progressive education, I smile and think back to my time at Wickliffe. I think about my host teacher who let me be myself and learn with the students. I think about every single staff member at Wickliffe who is passionate about progressive education and inspired me anytime I walked into their classrooms. I simply tell my peers who ask me about progressive education that it is a community where teachers and students work together to develop skills based on our interests and talents. Now I teach in a traditional school setting, but every decision I make comes from what I learned during student teaching in a progressive setting. It has changed who I am as an educator; I now look at education as a chance to create a community with my students where we can learn from each other and not one where I stand and lecture for six hours a day. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Morgan Land is a 5th grade ELA/SS teacher for Southwestern City Schools in Columbus, Ohio. She is a first year teacher who graduated last year with a Masters in Education from Western Governor’s University. E-mail: mland23@wgu.edu 18
PEN The Journal of the Progressive Education Network Summer 2022
