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The implications of progressivism in learning serve as an essential foundation for building an educational process that fosters active, creative, adaptive, and innovative students in accordance with 21st-century competency demands. The progressive approach positions students at the center of the learning process through direct experience, deep exploration, collaboration, dialogue, experimentation, and problem-solving relevant to real-life contexts, ensuring that learning is not only focused on content mastery but also on the development of potential, character, independence, and higher-order thinking skills. This study employs a literature review method by examining primary and secondary sources on the principles of progressivism, active learning strategies, and their relation to the Merdeka Curriculum as a foundation for national educational transformation. The findings indicate that progressivism plays a significant role in shaping critical thinking, creativity, communication, collaboration, digital literacy, and initiative through the implementation of learning by doing, project-based learning, simulations, scientific experiments, reflective discussions, and technology integration that strengthens learner autonomy. This experience-based approach effectively supports students in constructing knowledge independently while enhancing confidence, responsibility, social awareness, and cooperative skills. However, its implementation still faces challenges such as passive learning culture, limited teacher competence in active methods, insufficient facilities, overloaded curriculum, psychosocial barriers, academic anxiety, and students’ low confidence in expressing opinions. These findings affirm that progressivism is highly relevant to educational reform in Indonesia; therefore, improving teacher competence, strengthening facilities, reinforcing policies, providing continuous support, and creating safe, democratic, inclusive, and supportive learning environments are essential to help students develop optimally as independent, creative, and innovative learners.

The Merdeka Curriculum policy, initiated by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology (Kemendikbudristek), marks a significant paradigm shift in the Indonesian educational landscape. This curriculum emphasizes student-centered learning, flexibility, and the development of competencies according to students' interests and talents. This study aims to critically analyze the relevance of the philosophy of progressivism, pioneered by John Dewey, as a conceptual foundation for the implementation of the Merdeka Curriculum. Using a systematic literature review method on 15 Sinta indexed scientific journals (minimum Sinta 4) published between 2018-2024, this study examines the alignment between the core principles of progressivism such as experience as the basis of learning (learning by doing), the teacher's role as a facilitator, problem-solving, and democratic education and the essence of the Merdeka Curriculum policy. The analysis reveals a strong alignment between the two concepts. Project-based learning, content differentiation, and formative assessment within the Merdeka Curriculum are concrete manifestations of progressive ideas. However, this study also identifies implementation challenges, such as teacher readiness, school culture transformation, and resource availability, which can hinder the internalization of this philosophy at the practical level. It is concluded that a deep understanding of the philosophy of progressivism by stakeholders, especially educational managers and teachers, is crucial to ensure that the Merdeka Curriculum becomes not just an administrative change, but also a substantive and sustainable pedagogical transformation.

Reconstructionism is a school of educational philosophy that aims to reshape society through radical educational reform. Rooted in a critique of progressivism, it emerged as a response to social and economic stagnation and the desire to make education an agent of social change. Its leading figures, such as George Counts and Harold Rugg, inspired by the thought of John Dewey and Theodore Brameld, advocate for an education that is able to deal with global challenges, including moral, social and environmental issues. Reconstructionism argues that education is not only responsible for shaping individuals, but also plays a role in building a just and equal society. The principles of this school emphasize the important role of education in dealing with the global crisis, as well as the need for a relevant curriculum to foster students' character and morals. This school places teachers as agents of change who play an important role in guiding students to face the challenges of the times, as well as designing a curriculum that prioritizes social interests. Thus, reconstructionism emphasizes the importance of education in saving civilization through the formation of character, morality, and a new, more humanist culture.

Education aims to help students become more independent and critical in the process of discovering their own identity. Participatory education is a relevant approach that allows students to actively participate in the thinking process. The philosophy of educational progressivism pioneered by John Dewey reflects much of this approach. According to progressivism, education should be student-centered by emphasizing hands-on experience to teach and build critical thinking skills. Relevant works on progressivism and Dewey's concept of education are investigated in this qualitative research. The results show that the idea of progressivism is strongly related to Indonesia's national education goal, which is to create innovative, independent, and flexible students. A student-centered curriculum and a supportive education system are needed to implement this theory.

The application of the philosophy of progressive education within the Merdeka Curriculum aims to create a more student-centered education system that encourages active and contextual learning. Progressivism emphasizes the importance of hands-on experiences and the development of critical thinking skills through real projects and discussions. In the context of the Merdeka Curriculum, this approach allows students to explore their interests and talents more independently, with teachers acting as facilitators guiding the learning process. Through project-based learning, collaboration, and authentic assessment, the Merdeka Curriculum provides students with the opportunity to explore their interests and talents. This research identifies various strategies that educators can adopt to integrate the principles of progressivism, such as using active learning methods and allowing freedom in choosing learning materials. The implementation of the progressive philosophy presents several challenges, including teachers' readiness to adopt new roles, the need to adjust the curriculum to local contexts, and the availability of adequate resources. However, this application also offers significant opportunities to enhance the quality of education by producing graduates who are more adaptive, creative, and capable of solving complex problems. This study highlights how the application of progressive philosophy in the Merdeka Curriculum can increase student motivation, develop 21st-century skills, and prepare them for future challenges. Therefore, it is essential to continuously evaluate and develop this approach to align with the evolving times and national educational needs.

This research aims to explain the concept of progressivism in exhibition management in the Fine Arts Education study program, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Muhammadiyah University of Makassar. The type of research used is qualitative-explanatory research, which provides an explanation of why fine arts education study programs use progressivism as a concept in exhibition management. This research uses a qualitative-explanatory method with a library research approach, namely providing an explanation by identifying several relevant literature, then filtering it based on the relevance and quality of the literature found. As a library research, the primary research data is in the form of John Dewey's progressivist philosophical thoughts in his primary work "Democracy and Education". Secondary data is in the form of a literature study of John Dewey's progressivist thoughts written in e-journals. The researcher documented the thoughts of educational progressivism according to John Dewey and then presented them descriptively.

This research aims to understand the concept of progressivism and explore in depth how a teacher implements progressivism in his teaching practice. Along with changes in social and technological dynamics, learning is no longer simplified to merely transferring information but students also play an active role in learning activities. Research conducted using interviews is a type of qualitative research, which aims to understand a particular phenomenon or context through collecting and analyzing non-numerical data, such as text, images or sound. The subject of this research was a teacher at SMP Negeri 1 Sidamanik, named Hermaulina Siallagan, S.Pd and also the answers to the questions given. Researchers conducted online interviews with sources via Google Meet or the Gmail application. The results of the research show the implementation of progressivism in Mrs. Hermaulina's teaching practice, namely that she defines a teacher as an educator and teacher. In terms of learning carried out by Mrs. Hermaulina, she focuses more on student-centred learning. Then he also prioritizes collaborative learning, both collaboration between teachers and students and collaboration between students and other students. Thus, Mrs. Hermaulina has implemented the flow of progressivism in her teaching practice.