An Appraisal of a Nongraded School Utilizing a Conceptual Model Developed by Daniel Monroe Purdom

Abstract

Historically, educating all the people was generally considered an excellent and necessary idea and before any thorough weighing of alternatives and counter proposals as to the best way to educate all of the people was completed, the commitment to compulsory school attendance had already taken over the country. In a somewhat typical American fashion the vision far exceeded any process capable of connecting reality to the vision. Finally, during the latter part of the nineteenth century, educators prodded by public minded critics of a wide assortment, took time out to evaluate the progress toward their vision and it was then they found something seriously amiss, that education seemed too structured, too suffocating, too uneducational. It was during this period of awakening that progressive education began. Among those who advocated a new kind of education there grew a common belief in the "importance of individual difference and creativity" (16:146).