His project method was not about activities that train the individual’s mind, advance his knowledge, and promote independent thinking. That is the essence of the Montessori Method, which we’ll consider below—along with Kilpatrick’s criticism of it. Kilpatrick was interested not in encouraging independence but in engineering social conformity. …
Not surprising, Kilpatrick admired the Soviet Union, and when he visited it in 1929, he was delighted to see his project method in action. For instance, he witnessed groups of students “disposing of disintegrating carcasses of animals left frozen by the roadside.” And he reported, “no school system in history has been more thoroughly and consistently made to work into the social and political program of the state.”
Dewey also pilgrimaged to the Soviet Union in 1929 and “was deeply moved by what he saw.” He reported that Soviet educators “realized that the goals of the progressive school were undermined by ‘the egoistic and private ideals and methods inculcated by the institution of private property, profit and acquisitive possession.’” …
George Counts, another leading Progressive educator at Columbia, was even more fulsome in praise of Communism. Twice he visited the Soviet Union, becoming convinced that American schools must take the lead in transforming the United States from a capitalist into a socialist nation. Counts sought to transform Progressive education into political activism in support of socialism.
Progressive educators had long held a hodgepodge of educational theories. On the one hand, they believed that the child’s impulses should guide his education. On the other, they believed that the purpose of education was to socialize him—to teach him to conform and fit into the social order. These two components were not as contradictory as they seemed. For whether children were encouraged to act on their whims, or taught to conform to the group—or, under differing circumstances, to do both—they were never taught to think independently.
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