If by 'schools' you mean schools for younger children ie primary and secondary schools then student centred education requires a change to systemic policies to be practical. To be truly child centred curriculum needs to be concept based (not content) and developmental (a continuum of concept development). Queensland, Australia had just such a system in Science for a short time (2000 - 2005)  before the politicians blocked its use. Policy also has to accept individual progress as the meaure of success. As soon as success is measured as 'passing' for the grade level, child centred education declines. From a practical classroom point of view, I ran such a system in my classes from 2000 to 2005 and found it workable. It wasn't necessary for every child to be working on something different. In general, 50% to 70% of students were happy to work with a class determined context (eg how do roller coasters work?). The other 30 to 50% worked on modifications of the main context or totally different contexts in small groups or individually. The child centredness came from working with each child's needs to help them learn what they most needed to progress from where they had been to a new level. As in ANY system of assessment, teacher decisions can result in mistakes, but I found that the students were in the most part MORE ready to engage with the work and continue to learn than in any other system.

'Child Centered Education' is now being used in many schools. The terms 'child-centered', 'student-centered' and 'learner-centered' are basically the same.

Dear colleague,

   These papers describe strategies of teaching, which are oriented on learners and can be successfully  used at higher education institutions and at schools:

   https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276542671_SOME_STRATEGIES_OF_THE_EFFECTIVE_TEACHING_OF_FOREIGN_LANGUAGES

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286625219_THE_PROCESS_OF_GLOBALIZATION_AND_ITS_EFFECT_ON_THE_TEACHING_OF_FOREIGN_LANGUAGES_AT_THE_INSTITUTIONS_OF_HIGHER_EDUCATION_ON_THE_EXAMPLE_OF_IVANE_JAVAKHISHVILI_TBILISI_STATE_UNIVERSITY_GEORGIA

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286624705_FOR_THE_IMPROVEMENT_OF_TEACHING_FOREIGN_LANGUAGES_ON_THE_UNDERGRADUATE_LEVEL_ON_THE_EXAMPLE_OF_THE_REFORMS_CARRIED_OUT_AT_THE_FACULTY_OF_HUMANITIES_OF_IVANE_JAVAKHISHVILI_TBILISI_STATE_UNIVERSITY_GEOR

Article SOME STRATEGIES OF THE EFFECTIVE TEACHING OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

Article THE PROCESS OF GLOBALIZATION AND ITS EFFECT ON THE TEACHING ...

Article FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGES ON THE UND...

If by 'schools' you mean schools for younger children ie primary and secondary schools then student centred education requires a change to systemic policies to be practical. To be truly child centred curriculum needs to be concept based (not content) and developmental (a continuum of concept development). Queensland, Australia had just such a system in Science for a short time (2000 - 2005)  before the politicians blocked its use. Policy also has to accept individual progress as the meaure of success. As soon as success is measured as 'passing' for the grade level, child centred education declines. From a practical classroom point of view, I ran such a system in my classes from 2000 to 2005 and found it workable. It wasn't necessary for every child to be working on something different. In general, 50% to 70% of students were happy to work with a class determined context (eg how do roller coasters work?). The other 30 to 50% worked on modifications of the main context or totally different contexts in small groups or individually. The child centredness came from working with each child's needs to help them learn what they most needed to progress from where they had been to a new level. As in ANY system of assessment, teacher decisions can result in mistakes, but I found that the students were in the most part MORE ready to engage with the work and continue to learn than in any other system.

This is a really interesting question - because some systems (e.g., Ontario, Canada) have fairly prescriptive curriculum and assessment, which means that (as the original question asks) child-centredness can only go "so far." Now, what the original poster meant by child-centred remains unclear. But suppose the poster was referring to constructivism in Dewey's conception - the official curriculum and the way that standards are "enforced" (especially when large-scale standardized testing occurs) means that the school has massive limits on how far the students' natural inclinations and curiosity can be driven. Great question - and my answer would be: "depends on the policy, and how it is enforced AND enacted"

Great answers given, which I all endorse and might add that creating spaces that allow children to fully discover and experience learning thru play, music, art, games etc. can constitute child-centered learning. See the attached for related studies in RG that I hope are helpful to your topic.

Best regards,

Debra

https://www.researchgate.net/search.Search.html?type=publication&query=Child%20Centered%20Learning&tabViewId=56fa8d08dc332d20e65724ca&previous=researcher

Hi,

 For me, child would mean those at the elementary/pre schooling and lower primary education stage. At this stage, it is impossible to implement any curriculum through child centred approach. Pedagogically speaking, children can not teach themselves anything apart from language. Language development takes place rhythmically with a child's biological development. Please read child psychology/language development.

Regards!

Good point Jimela. I guess it depends on the meaning of 'child centred'. If we take it to mean based on the child's interests, then in some ways that is meaningless when very young (except in the sense of play based) because they are interested in everything. As soon as they are old enough to make active choices then this meaning of child centred becomes possible. If however, we take child centred to be about learning needs then it does have meaning at even a young age. The conversations a talented preschool teacher has with a child during play would then be child centred. The opposite is true about what is happening in the States where scripted direct instruction is used for preschoolers (in some places). This is the opposite of child centred in all regards. With respect to your statement about children teaching themselves, I have never taken child centred to mean discovery learning, although play based learning could be an example of children teaching themselves by building experiences about the world.

I agree that the answers provided above have been very useful and comprehensive. I would just briefly add a note about the obstacles to implementing this ideal. My reference point is the US, but I believe the points I raise are issues in many places throughout the world. Our notion of what a school is and how it operates often gets in the way of child centered teaching. From standardized curricula and testing, to the student-teacher ratio, there are barriers to connecting with each student at the individual level. The model for the modern American public school was developed when we were shifting to an industrial economy. Our cities were growing rapidly, we needed people working in factories, and we needed a workforce with the basic skills needed for that type of work - including speaking English. So, our schools were built with a large emphasis on efficiency (which was seen as a key to success during the industrial revolution) and standardization. In the end, we developed a system, much like an assembly line, whereby students move from one space to the next on a set schedule. Each step along they way, they work on a discrete task or subject area. Generally, we move as many through the system as possible so we maximize the number of students per teacher. This early mindset is still reflected in our push to standardize the educational experience. Unfortunately, all of these things combine to create a context that was not designed to be child centered. Great teachers do,and always have, found ways to create a more individualized learning experience and a positive climate within this system. However, since the time of Dewey up until the present, the overall structure and logic driving our school system has been more of a barrier than a facilitator in this regard.

private progressive education is available and has been shown to be effective over a life time in shaping adults with a wide variety of professions, but often as leaders. It has also been effective at shaping good citizens, with a strong and reliable affection for the public good.  Public progressive education is available in many parts of the world characterized by high levels of social cohesion.  The most well known are in Finland perhaps. But the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Denmark all have public progressive education. Child-centered education and progressive education are either one and the same; partly the same; but certainly parallel. So yes it is possible. 

See the Carl Rogers books on 20th century schools/learning.  He was/is the authority on Client-Centered Therapy in counseling, and his ideas have been used as foundation for schooling.

Mark E Gould, Romer Castillo, and Lyelle Palmer,

Thank you very much for your valuable answers. Thank you for the book suggested.        As a part of my study I visited some schools in different parts of  India. Many of the teachers shared with me they follow student centered approach. But as  I study more and more on student centered education, it is more practical in higher education in India. There are attempts from CBSE board and some state boards to make education more and more student centered. There are attempts to re-design the books,  include more activities and so on. Still what makes me to ask such a question is, when I study more on student centered education, though there are some schools and some teachers personally work to make their class rooms more student centered. in general it is teacher centered or curriculum centered, or exam centered I feel. 

That's why I asked about the practical dimension of student centered education in schools. Could any one suggest a case study on Student centered education in schools primary/ secondary schools.

Once again thank you for the responses.

Mollykutty P. V

While reading the responses thus far it is not surprising to discover that contributors have different views about child centred education. This is the problem I have with labels. So many schools claim they are child centred yet when once you step inside and observe classrooms they are everything but what I deem child centredness to be. For me it's about putting the child's needs before the curriculum mandates. This doesn't mean the curriculum isn't addressed it just means it evolves, is shaped and is honed with learner needs rather than being imposed on all children at the same time because they are the same age.

There is so much information and many comments about this topic.  I subscribe to a Chomskian idea of freedom in education and am persuaded that the ideals of education promoted in the Chinese Cultural Revolution, far from being a totalitarian and repressive structure, sought to remove impediments to the masses in gaining knowledge, skills and techniques that are critical and yet practical.  

How far can a school become child-centered?  In Asian contexts, the state plays a heavy hand and having my own children going through this, I have opted out of schools and moved to home schooling cooperatives.  

1.      Niell, A. S.  (1960) Summerhill – a radical approach to child rearing

2.      The theorist Max Horkheimer described a theory as critical insofar as it seeks "to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them."[1]

3.      Holt, J. (1995).  How Children Learn.  Rev. Ed. Perseus.

4.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai7e4jmhvAk

5.  Journal of Critical Pedagogy, University of North Carolina.

Thank you very much Gloria Latham . It may be true. There can difference, in perception, literature and actuality. 

Thank you Donald Persons for your wonderful contribution. I'll go through and will be back to you. 

Regards

Thank you Pedro Ribeiro Mucharreira ,

For your help.

Regards

Mollykutty

The history of child-centered education in the United States goes back to our origins with one-room schools where students were of different ages and levels of learning, but teachers orchestrated an appropriate education for each of them.  In the more mechanized models of schooling found in the early part of the 20th Century, the idea of a child-centered curriculum took a back seat to efficiency models of learning.  Deweyian ideas moved the conversation  back to the child as the center of education and progressivism gained traction.  In the 1970's the movement of individualism gained some traction, especially because credible research studies were demonstrating learning differences favoring more individualized models of education (see Klausmeier et al.)..  Today we have an emphasis on differentiation which attempts to meet the needs of individual students who show significant deviation from the norm.  Some educators have interpreted this movement as a return to the individualism of the past.  Perhaps, it is more aptly seen as an explosion of special needs advocates converging on the regular classroom as a center for providing needs-based services to the disabled, the gifted, and second language learners.  This evolution of approaches have had many variations over the last 100 years. 

The enemy of such approaches seems to be the push for standards-based learning that is perceived to be rigid in its demands for learnng to be interpreted in months of schooling attained, calibrated to pre-specified levels of learning.  If we agree that learning at an individual level is idiosyncratic and defined more by developmental spurts than by even growth patterns,  then we would realize that standards must be interpreted flexibly, to allow some students to move through them more rapidly and others more slowly.  Standards-based education does not have to be an enemy of a child-centered approach if it were implemented  in a more flexible way.

The organizational structure within which schooling occurs in the US needs a less rigid interpretation by educators to retain the right balance between advancing learning goals that are consensual in the community and addressing the needs of individual learners.

Mark Gould:  In the Queensland example you mention that politicians axed the child-centered learning program in the early 2000s.  I wonder if you have any links that might explain why the politicians did that.  It would be useful so that in the future we can outguess the detractors pulling strings behind the scene.

Student centered approach in education may be seen in different ways. One of the respondents attributed it to concept focused. Another opined that it requires a holistic approach.

But my question is: Why can’t we consider individualized teaching approach? This involves teaching and learning at each student’s pace. It seems to work well in GED programs where teachers work with students on one-on-one basis without structured completion time. The student moves to the next level as he/she gains mastery of the subject matter in the curriculum.

Another way to look at it is to borrow from a Total Quality Management (TQM) approach, which has a goal to achieve student /customer satisfaction. TQM holds that quality is defined and determined by customers, but in education, student satisfaction becomes the case.  It further asserts that an organization that fails to meet customer satisfaction in its services does not have quality.  Thus, one of the primary elements of TQM is attributed to customer-focused initiative.

Cole (2002) suggests that in order to achieve continuous improvement, leadership must have a good understanding of the three basic customer characteristics: achieving students' or customers' wants, needs, and expectations.  However, Cole (1995) exerts that in business, customers are always right but in education, students are not always right.  But an organization, be it an educational institution or a business entity, must develop ways to achieve customer satisfaction. The beginning step in achieving customer satisfaction is to design a well thought out plan to achieve the institution’s (organization’s) goals and objectives. It must focus on how to meet the needs of the customers (students) through improved performance. There is a link between continuous improvement and outcome assessments hence the improvements serve as an indication of meeting performance objectives (AggieDaily, 1995). 

@Donald Persons, as far as I know there is no study explaining the sociology of what happened. It was a time of change towards right wing politics with their usual agenda of competetition and personal responsibility. Many comentators regarded the system I described as 'wishy washy' because it didn't tell parents exactly how their stdents compared with their  peers, which for some reason was rhought to be necessary to success. I guess there was also a backlash at the time to the American  focus on building self  belief which proved to have negative consequences. That system and the system I described had nothing in common however. 

Thank you Harshvardhan Singh,for your wonderful contributions. Really helpful articles.

Thank you once again.

The culture of the child is opposed to the school culture, unless a way is found to tap into this potential the challenge of child centred learning will always exist. We set the curriculum and standards of what normative means, therefore to have a totally child cantered approach, even if we are guiding them to what we want them to learn in their own way, is more of a smoke screen. But in terms of pedagogy and the ability to facilitate learning we can have either a thin veil of smoke where we support and assist learning or a dark smog where we smother children into compliance and push them through to the other side.

All children have a right to an education that helps them grow and develop to their fullest; this basic premise is at the heart of child-centered education. Therefore, daily interactions with children should be based on the fundamental question, Am I teaching and supporting all children in their growth and development across all domains—social, emotional, physical, linguistic, and intellectual? Such teaching is at the heart of developmentally appropriate practice.

For more information, please see the links attached:

I think 'child-centred education' in schools is possible only if some of the crucial enabling conditions are met. In Bhutan we do prepare our teachers to make use of this concept but once they are in the field (I mean schools), research has shown that they are not able to implement 'child-centred education' due to various practical difficulties such as number of children in the class (which is on an average 40 students) is unexceptionally large, examination oriented system, shortage of teachers, lack of teaching learning materials, etc. So my point here is- for a 'child-centred education' to work- the class size has to be much smaller, less focus on end of the year examination (specially with lower classes), adequate teachers, and plenty of teaching learning materials.

One important aspect of 'child-centred education' is the concept of student engagement which is defined as 'behavioural engagement, emotional engagement and cognitive engagement' (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004). I always encourage our teachers to try out these different types of student engagement through action research. There are plenty of action research papers carried out by action research gurus.

I wonder if the blue rectangle at the bottom on researchgate should read: Add your response rather than add your answer. I believe there are no answers to these questions posed. Kezang, your context of examination driven ideology and large class sizes is  a sound example of our differences. This same  line of thinking can be applied to child centred learning as  there is no 'child' the same, no recipe or format, curriculum mandate that will reach all children. It is therefore in our hands to start with the people we teach and their needs rather than a one size fits all approach. What differs as we explore a maths concept or the interpretation of a short story are our expectations as we teach to the point of need.

Dear all,

Thank you for your courtesy to respond to my question. I thank all of you for your sincere contributions.

Thank you

Mollykutty 

It is  also an area of interest for me to learn more on child centered education in schools.when i applied this method i finfed wonderful  result. for children in kindergaten for, parents, fot teacher, but it need very hard exercises to be as value or belives for teacher ,especally I used this method to develop multiple intelligences for children .

Interesting question & nice contributions. I am following.