Contributed Commentary on
Volume 4 Number 8: Stone Developmentalism: An Obscure but Pervasive Restriction on Educational Improvement

---

2 May 1996

Sherman Dorn

dornsj@CTRVAX.VANDERBILT.EDU

J. E. Stone writes:

I agree that the present paper offers no empirical evidence of developmentalism as a barrier. My primary aim was to bring into focus a phenomenon that, in my view, pervades education in such a way that it has veritably become part of the air we breathe. I have named it and sought to show its educational significance.

I think it's provocative and a plausible thesis and, as I wrote Rick, I will suggest people read it. However, I'm more cautious about it, because resistance to change is more widespread than the people who adhere to what you call developmentalist philosophies. I would also bet that many people who use developmentalism as an *excuse* not to change teaching methods are doing so, at least in part, for other reasons. Intense instruction, even to small groups of students, is even more exhausting than poor teaching.

As to published reports of intervention oriented programs discarded or rejected on account of differences with what seems to be developmentalist thinking, I can refer you to the following off the top of my head:

Thanks for posting these. You may want to use this type of evidence in future articles. It would be more persuasive (at least to me) than citing methods textbooks.
On the influence of Dewey:

As to Cremin's account of progressive education, it is reasonable to contend that the Progressive Education Association did lose connection with Dewey's philosophy... That the Association changed is one thing, that "progressive education" changed is another.

The criticism of progressive education after WWII was focused on the PEA and the Life Adjustment Movement -- most incisively (as in Arthur Bestor) the curriculum of high schools. I've read Bestor, and I don't recall where developmental psychology was an issue, either explicitly or implicitly.

More relevant to the matter of doctrine and the ideas imported to the schools are the progressive and neo progressive nature of the recommendations about sound teaching practice issued by the National Education Association and the U. S. Office of Education (also by the U. S. Bureau of Education).

I would take this with a grain of salt, sort of like the mothering recommendations put out by the Child Bureau (or, later, Spock). Some portion of the population saw them as bibles, but they're not evidence of actual childrearing practice or even widespread philosophies.