A time and thought line

Abstract

If the material in this time and thought line seems a bit redundant, then you will have gotten the point. In a sense, open education is not really new; the basic principles are rather old, having their roots in John Dewey's progressivism, in Maria Montessori's work, in Susan Isaac's writings, and so on. In England, for example, informal classrooms have been developing, in practice, since the Second World War, and the theories behind them go back still further. This time line, then, has several purposes: to trace some of the historical thought-paths to open education today, to highlight some of the key events in the development in the United States, to rekindle interest in some of the older writers on education, and to provide references to some of the more significant documents (such as the Vermont Design for Education and-the “Bible” of the movement-the Plowden Report). Thus, the following section is intended more for browsing, spot checking, and documentary reference than for continuous reading.—Ed.