Teacher-Pupil Planning

Teacher-pupil planning represented a widespread curricular-instructional practice of teachers who were attempting to embody general principles of progressive education and democracy in the classroom. Although teacher-pupil planning was never codified into a formal, instructional methodology, the practice was used at both the elementary, middle, and secondary school levels and, along with resource units and a fused core curriculum, proved quite popular among progressive high schools of the 1930s and 1940s. To view the activity as an example of the child-centered curriculum movement would be a disservice to the concept as would describing teacher-pupil planning as a component of the “activity curriculum.” Although all of these terms have been used to portray teacher-pupil planning, the practice stressed other concepts and was developed as a way to reconcile specific curricular dilemmas of progressive educationnamely, the interests and needs of the students and the building of community.

Although teacher-pupil planning ultimately resulted in the development of curricular activities, its origins arose more as a way to reconcile the balance between student needs and interests as the sources for selecting curricular experiences. Defining democracy in the classroom as a setting where experiences would be determined by both the (shared) interests of the students along with the perceived (real) personal/social needs of the individual, teacher-pupil planning served as a way to develop a classroom atmosphere where youth could build meaningful relationships with adults (the teachers). Attention was devoted to ways to assist teachers to better anticipate student interests and needs, and methods to introduce “cooperative” classroom practices.

Although intended as a method to select course content, teacher-pupil planning entailed much more: providing motivation for teachers and students and encouraging both to extend the range of their shared interests and values. Over time, criteria evolved as both students and their teachers became increasingly sophisticated at cooperative work. This did not mean that teachers abdicated their responsibilities and allowed students to pursue questionable topics, as critics have charged. Quite the contrary, teachers were expected to be more conscientious than they typically had been in traditional instructional settings and were responsible for noting curricular possibilities that otherwise would have been overlooked. In what proved to be the most comprehensive treatment of the practice, H. H. Giles describes seven characteristics of this curricular-pedagogical method: democracy, use of scientific method, change as a constant factor, creativity, individualization, socialization, and organization through a problem-oriented approach.

Teacher-pupil planning involved the following practices: Before a first class meeting, teachers would conduct a preliminary survey of pupils' backgrounds. They would review cumulative files to learn about abilities and interests as well as about past academic experience, and they discuss the previous years' work with a view toward program continuity. Preplanning involved carefully anticipating possible topics and projects for study, surveying available instructional materials, and devising ways to evaluate the completed work. Larger school aims were always kept in mind as were students' individual needs. All of this work took place outside of the classroom and was often quite time consuming. A 2-month unit might take 2 full weeks to plan as time was spent identifying salient topics (often the most difficult problem), assigning group and individual projects, deciding on common experiences, and determining how ideas would be brought together, shared, and evaluated. During the process, revisions would be made as needed. Planning was as much a part of the learning experience of students as was the execution and evaluation of the designs themselves, each a component of intelligence as a method for reflective thinking.

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