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Individualized Instruction: A Projection

To venture yet another essay on the topic of individualized instruction may well appear an act of hubris. In the literature of educational exhortation no less than in the literature of educational research, individualized instruction (II) is a perennial favorite. Is there anything about II which has not already been said many times by psychologists (of every ilk), sociologists, geneticists, classroom teachers, and students, and, yes, philosophers of education? I believe, of course, that there is something new and important to be said, else I should not present this new attempt. But let me first review some of the things which have been said. A good place to begin is in the first half of the decade just preceding this one. Many things were happening to schools which occasioned another look at this, by now hoary, topic. Two of these developments are worth particular attention--the coming of age of programmed instruction (PI) and the new awareness of the deprivation of many groups of school children, especially black and Puerto Rican children in urban slums. I was involved in both those movements in a somewhat peripheral way, and I should like to describe them in an autobiographical mode of speech. But before doing that, I should beg indulgence to establish an informal base line to show approximately where thought about II stood prior to the impact of PI and the War on Poverty.