Personal Project
Mihaela CHIRU
Institute of Educational Sciences, BucharestHistory
W. E. Kilpatrick (1870-1965) introduced the project method in 1918, as a pedagogical
initiative to erase the rigid boundaries between the academic subjects (compartmentalised
curriculum) and bring pupils closer to the real life. The background in Kilpatrick’s theory
on the formative role of the project method can be found in Dewey and the philosophy of
progressive education in the first half of the 20th century. The central idea is that “we
learn what we live” (Beineke, 1998), and the final goal is achievement of democracy and
a good character. Pupils’ interest in learning is stimulated by valuable goals in social
situations that induce confidence, initiative, cooperation, and for attainment of which
teachers must create conditions of interaction with colleagues, parents, and society. Any
purpose-oriented action qualifies as a “project”.
There are claims that Kilpatrick was not the first to have defined the method. Knoll
(1997) synthesises American references that place the agricultural expert Stimson with
his concept of “home project plan” ten years earlier. The Germans mention Richards and
Dewey in 1900 with “arts and crafts programmes”. Recent research (idem) shows that the
project’s origins go back to the end of the 16th century in the Italian architectural and
engineering arts.
In the 1970s the project method witnessed a revival especially in northern and central
Europe. No few ideologies in education (e.g. the movement for community education,
open curriculum, practical learning) claim to have sprung from the progressive education
method and the psychological approach of “project-based learning”. Overseas, the project