Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach has an excellent post and an extraordinary video on John Dewey and progressive education. 

It’s an old seven-minute film on progressive education that appears to have been made in the 1930’s.  It’s amazing what you can find on YouTube!

If you check it out, you might want to also read a comment I left there on the absence of non-white faces in the film and parallels with today.