So my daughter’s English class is reading “The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin”. This is a book Brit has read before and really likes. When noting that they were reading this book, Brit commented that it’s really sad; because this is a great book and she’s afraid it’ll be taught in such a way that the class will hate it. What does she mean by this? That an interesting story will be turned into a set of schedules, analysis exercises, tests, and scores. All intrinsic interest in the story will be killed for the sake of getting a grade.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m reading Dewey’s “Democracy and Education”. I’ve included a rather lengthy quote from chapter 3 below.
“For when the schools depart from the educational conditions effective in the out-of-school environment, they necessarily substitute a bookish, a pseudo-intellectual spirit for a social spirit. Children doubtless go to school to learn, but it has yet to be proved that learning occurs most adequately when it is made a separate conscious business. When treating it as a business of this sort tends to preclude the social sense which comes from sharing in an activity of common concern and value, the effort at isolated intellectual learning contradicts its own aim. We may secure motor activity and sensory excitation by keeping an individual by himself, but we cannot thereby get him to understand the meaning which things have in the life of which he is a part. We may secure technical specialized ability in algebra, Latin, or botany, but not the kind of intelligence which directs ability to useful ends. Only by engaging in a joint activity, where one person’s use of material and tools is consciously referred to the use other persons are making of their capacities and appliances, is a social direction of disposition attained.” (Emphasis mine.)
Not exactly Brit’s point… but very complementary to it.
Because of the external control that a teacher can assert, the class will read this book. They will do the exercises and take the tests. They will learn something. But if I understand Brit’s point, they will probably do it out of compulsion and probably not enjoy it.
Assuming the book is taught as a set of individual assignments and assessments (and not as some sort of constructive social activity); another thing they are not likely to do, if I understand Dewey’s point, is to internalize any social or moral lessons that could be gained from the book. They won’t become better or wiser people.
I certainly hope I’m wrong… I’ll report back if I’m pleasantly surprised.
Next week, I hope to get back to some technology.
I noted in a previous post that I was starting to read John Dewey’s “Democracy and Education”.
Why read Dewey? Mainly because of the dissonance associated with my sparse knowledge of him. I seem to remember Dewey first as the father of American progressive education. But a few years ago, he made it into one of my daughter’s History books (fairly large Christian School, I don’t remember the publisher) as the (I’m paraphrasing here) man responsible for the destruction of the American public school system. I don’t remember the book describing how he had accomplished this feat. But I did decide I wanted to see for myself.
Right off the bat, his views on control in education resonated with me. However, I got a pretty big shock in Chapture 3. I’ve always thought of constructivism as relatively new. But Dewey pens the following paragraph in Chapter 3, section 4.
“Why is it, in spite of the fact that teaching by pouring in, learning by a passive absorption, are universally condemned, that they are still so entrenched in practice? That education is not an affair of “telling” and being told, but an active and constructive process, is a principle almost as generally violated in practice as conceded in theory.”
If this doesn’t describe Constructivism, then I don’t know what I’d call it!
If I understand Dewey’s quote here:
- Constructivist theory was accepted in 1916 (when “Democracy and Education was published).
- The schools had not implemented such into normal practice.
Seems to me that schools haven’t changed much much in this regard in the last 92 years!
Dewey’s explanation as to why this is the case follows the paragraph quoted above. It’s worth considering… maybe for a later post.
Last year, my daughter’s sophomore english class was assigned to read Harriet Jacobs “Incidents in the life of a slave girl.” Seems like a reasonable assignment… except that the students were not allowed to take the books home. The teacher set a schedule that Brit couldn’t keep up with. So, like any normal parent, I was irritated. I ran to Amazon to find the book. Then it hit me… the book was so old that it was probably out of Copyright. I downloaded it from Project Gutenberg, converted it to PDF, and installed it on her Palm Handheld (actually a Sony clone). This got her over the problem. And, of course, I didn’t write down what I did.
I’ve been thinking about a book to read on Education - and John Dewey came to mind (I’ll explain why in a future post). I realized that his books are probably out of copyright and ran up to Project Gutenberg and downloaded “Democracy and Education”. (I’ll try the plucker reader later… for now I’m just repeating my original method for getting the book onto a Palm device.)
Steps to get the text version of a Project Gutenberg book onto a Palm as a PDF file.
- Open the text file in a word processor that can export a PDF file. I used Open Office 2.0.
- Pare down the page size. I selected a page size of 3″ x 3″. You need to do this to offset the Palm’s limited performance. When changing pages, the Palm renders the whole page. A full size page takes quite a while to render. A 3″ x 3″ page renders quickly. For example, on the Palm Z22 I’m playing with, a standard size page takes about 10 seconds to render, while the small page only takes 2 or 3 seconds. This doesn’t matter much if you change pages and start reading. But if you are trying to scroll through pages to find something, the smaller pages save a lot of time.
- Set the margins to 0″ all around. (I’m not sure this makes a difference.)
- Change the font to Arial size 10, but NOT Bold. (This has good results for me, but there may be a better combination).
- Export the file from the word processor as a PDF file.
- Use the Adobe Reader for Palm OS application on your PC to convert the PDF for transfer to the Palm.
- Sync your device.
So what’s it like to read a book on a Palm? It depends on the Palm. Traditionally, I’ve used Palm Vx. It has a reflective green screen which is very good in bright sunlight but not very good in poor lighting. Reading on the Palm Vx was not very pleasurable. Brit has a Sony with an active matrix monochrome screen. It is much brighter and pretty readable. The Z22 I’m using now also has an active matrix (color, in this case) display, is very bright, and is also pretty readable. When reading on the Palm, be prepared to see a phenomenal number of pages listed at the bottom of the screen (due to changing the page size). For example, Democracy and Education shows 224 pages with a standard page size. The palm with the smaller page size shows 1075 pages! So don’t worry about the page count. But be ready to change pages often.
The primary advantage to using the Palm as an eReader is availability. The smaller Palms are small enough to keep with you at all times. Battery life on the Palm Vx is very good… I estimate you could use it pretty heavily for a week if you needed to. The better displays on the Sony and Z22 use up the battery more quickly. I estimate the Z22 has a battery life of 10 - 12 hours.
Conversion to PDF may not be the best method for using the Palm as an eBook reader… but it is a workable method. I’d certainly be happy to see any other suggestions. Like I mentioned above, I’ll try Plucker in the future and let you know what I think… and I still owe you the explanation of why I want to read Dewey.