{"id":3355,"date":"2017-10-21T10:24:34","date_gmt":"2017-10-21T17:24:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/chendricks\/?p=3355"},"modified":"2017-10-25T15:47:50","modified_gmt":"2017-10-25T22:47:50","slug":"open-education-in-the-60s-and-70s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/chendricks\/2017\/10\/21\/open-education-in-the-60s-and-70s\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Education in the 60s and 70s"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"icon<\/a>

Learner choice and autonomy as important to open education in the 60s and 70s. Icon purchased from The Noun Project<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n

As I’ve been thinking lately about open pedagogy (see all posts on this blog with that tag<\/a>), I’ve been looking back over some of what others have said about it, and was reminded that a couple of people in the last year have talked about how “open education” has been used\/defined in the past and how some of that appears similar to how “open pedagogy” is used today. In this post I dig into some of the earlier work that other people have pointed to, in order to try to understand at least a little bit about some of the history of these concepts, while fully recognizing this is only a tiny taste of what is likely out there.<\/p>\n

The things I’ve seen lately from others are from Tannis Morgan (Open Pedagogy and a Very Brief History of the Concept<\/a>) and Vivien Rolfe (slides for “Open. But not for criticism?”<\/a> ). Looking at these led me down a bit of a rabbit hole about the open education movement in England & North America in the 60s and 70s. I start here with a bit of general background on the movement, and then look at some of the things Morgan & Rolfe point to.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A general overview of open education in the 60s and 70s<\/h1>\n

I found an article by Larry Cuban from 2004 called “The Open Classroom,”<\/a> which gives a history of open education in the U.S. in the 60’s and 70’s. He states that the open education movement at the time sprang from informal classrooms in primary education in the UK in the 1960s. It was seen as a good way to respond to criticism of the school system at the time, including that formal schooling was “crushing students’ creativity.” And it fit well with other social and political movements at the time in the U.S., including civil rights, anti-war movements, criticizing a culture of conformity, etc.<\/p>\n

Cuban describes open classrooms pretty succinctly as follows:<\/p>\n

In both Britain and the United States, open classrooms contained no whole-class lessons, no standardized tests, and no detailed curriculum. The best of the open classrooms had planned settings where children came in contact with things, books, and one another at \u201cinterest centers\u201d and learned at their own pace with the help of the teacher. Teachers structured the classroom and activities for individual students and small work groups. They helped students negotiate each of the reading, math, science, art, and other interest centers on the principle that children learn best when they are interested and see the importance of what they are doing. …<\/p>\n

Teams of teachers worked with multiage groups of students and created elementary schools where children were no longer assigned to grade levels. Some school districts started alternative open education programs at the high-school level and gave teachers discretion to create new academic courses where students directed their own learning, worked in the community, and pursued intellectual interests. At both the elementary and secondary levels, open education meant teachers were acting more as coaches in helping students than as bosses directing children in every activity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He notes that the idea of students directing their own learning<\/strong> as much as possible was key: “At both the elementary and secondary levels, open education meant teachers were acting more as coaches in helping students than as bosses directing children in every activity.”<\/p>\n

Cuban points out that there was a conservative backlash against the open education movement, as there was against some of the other social, political and cultural movements of that era. But things didn’t completely fizzle out–the emphasis we see today on student-directed, rather than teacher-directed learning is a continuation of the values and principles of the open education movement, Cuban suggests.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With this general background on some of what was going on under the guise of “open education,” next I want to look at some of the articles discussed by Tannis Morgan and Vivien Rolfe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Morgan reflecting on Claude Paquette<\/h2>\n

In a blog post called Open Pedagogy and a Very Brief History of the Concept<\/a> (2016) Tannis Morgan points to a 1979 article by Canadian Claude Paquette (in French) called “Quelques fondements d’une p\u00e9dagogie ouverte.”<\/a> She also talks about an article from 2005 by Paquette called “La p\u00e9dagogie ouverte et interactive.”<\/a> He also apparently published two volumes under the title Une p<\/em>\u00e9dagogie Ouverte et interactive<\/em>, as can be seen in this library entry<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Morgan summarizes some of his ideas in “La p\u00e9dagogie ouverte et interactive”<\/a> as follows (the bold in the quote was added by me):<\/p>\n

Paquette outlines 3 sets of foundational values of open pedagogy, namely: autonomy and interdependence; freedom and responsibility; democracy and participation<\/strong>. He goes into some detail about these, but us ed tech folks will recognize some of the themes \u2013 individualized learning, learner choice, self-direction, \u2013 to name a few. He even talks about \u201copen activities\u201d as the big innovation in open pedagogy, whereby students simultaneously use their multiple talents in learning situations, and this process of learning is \u201cinteractional\u201d (aka social and connected). For Paquette, open is very much about learner choice, (albeit for him this is really about creating a classroom environment where this can be optimized).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Looking at that document myself, I notice also that he is really focuses on individuality and says that his view of open pedagogy renounces uniformity and conformity (renonce \u00e0 l\u2019uniformisation et \u00e0 la conformit\u00e9<\/em>). In terms of the first dyad bolded above, he says that autonomy<\/strong> must also be understood through a social life of interdependence<\/strong>, because each of us lives in constant interaction with others. Regarding the second he says that students should have a choice (freedom)<\/strong> amongst activities and projects, but such choice also brings responsibility<\/strong> (presumably, to follow through?). About the third he says that democracy and participation<\/strong> have to do with freedom of expression in the class as well as cooperation amongst students through things like dealing with disagreements or difficulties.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I’m going to do some pretty mediocre translating of parts of Paquette’s 1979 article<\/a> to see if I can add a bit more to all this. My abilities in French are okay, but not great, so some of what follows may not be quite right and may sound awkward.<\/p>\n

His article is organized around 4 basic principles (principes de base<\/em>) and 3 foundations of open pedagogy practice (fondements d’une pratique de la p\u00e9dagogie ouverte<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Basic principles:<\/p>\n