Progressive Education: Where Montessori, Waldorf and Learning by Doing Come From
Progressive education is an umbrella term for movements that began around the turn of the twentieth century to put the child at the center of learning. Where do the approaches known today as Montessori or Waldorf come from, and what links them to the slogan learning by doing? The text brings these lines of development together and shows that mainly the methods differ while the starting point stays the same.
What Is Progressive Education?
Progressive education is neither a single school nor a unified system. It covers various approaches based on the conviction that the child and their experience should form the starting point of teaching. How that experience can be shaped, each movement understands differently. Accordingly they differ in school practice. This variety marks the whole movement and explains why one can hardly speak of a common method.
One early source of this tradition is the thought of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. The formula "head, heart and hand" is attributed to him: learning should not be exhausted by memorizing. His approach, based on concrete experience, later influenced John Dewey. This influence is significant because it shows how an idea was carried forward from which the reform movement grew.
Montessori and Waldorf: Two Beginnings in Rome and Stuttgart
In January 1907, Maria Montessori opened the first Casa dei Bambini in the San Lorenzo district of Rome. The facility was meant for children from poor families. This is where the approach began that is still linked with her name today. That is why Montessori is the first thing many people think of when they hear progressive education.
The first Waldorf school, by contrast, was founded in 1919 in Stuttgart. There the children of the employees of the Waldorf-Astoria factory were taught. Twelve years and very different circumstances lie between the two beginnings. In Rome the starting point was a city district with children from poor families, in Stuttgart a factory with the children of its workers. Both examples show that the progressive movements arose in concrete places and from work with particular groups of children, not from theoretical reflection far removed from practice.
Learning by Doing With Dewey
The slogan learning by doing is linked with John Dewey. In 1916 he published the book Democracy and Education, which he himself described as an introduction to the philosophy of education. Learning by doing means in this view that knowledge arises from experience and not solely from what a child hears from the teacher.
This view changes how we see the role of learners. The child is not merely a recipient of ready-made information but takes part actively by doing something themselves and drawing conclusions from it. The teacher's task is then to make experiences possible and to shape them instead of just passing on knowledge. The slogan does not name a single, exactly defined technique. It stands instead for a way of thinking that offers orientation for what action-based learning can look like in different schools and classes.
What Connects the Progressive Movements and What Divides Them
What the movements share is their basic attitude: the child and their experience stand at the center. The differences lie in the methods, that is, in how this experience is shaped and accompanied. Montessori, Waldorf and learning by doing can therefore be understood as independent paths that grow out of the same idea, not as rival versions of one solution. From this perspective each direction can be described without rating it or ranking it.
Anyone who knows these beginnings can engage with the reform movement without oversimplifying its variety. For those interested, it is worth looking at the sources, such as Dewey's book mentioned above. The history and the documents of these traditions offer a basis for comparing them with one another.