More Dewey
I promise I’m not just commenting on Dewey forever! I’m working on a technology project… but it’s not ready to publish yet.
I have continued reading Dewey’s “Democracy and Education” and am frequently surprised at the “new” ideas (at least I thought they were pretty new) in this 1916 classic. See my previous posts here and here. Note that emphasis is mine in all quotes.
I’ll just post a few quotes without too much commentary…
- In line with Kohn’s concerns about democratic classrooms and burnout, Dewey provides the following in Chapter 6…
“It is customary to frown upon such aimless random activity, treating it as willful mischief or carelessness or lawlessness. But there is a tendency to seek the cause of such aimless activities in the youth’s own disposition, isolated from everything else. But in fact such activity is explosive, and due to maladjustmentwith surroundings. Individuals act capriciously whenever they act under external dictation, or from being told, without having a purpose of their own or perceiving the bearing of the deed upon other acts.”
- Following the previous quote, Dewey also sums up the school’s response to the students’ reactions to poor educative practices…
“But much work in school consists in setting up rules by which pupils are to act of such a sort that even after pupils have acted, they are not led to see the connection between the result–say the answer–and the method pursued. So far as they are concerned, the whole thing is a trick and a kind of miracle. Such action is essentially capricious, and leads to capricious habits. (b) Routine action, action which is automatic, may increase skill to do a particular thing. In so far, it might be said to have an educative effect. But it does not lead to new perceptions of bearings and connections; it limits rather than widens the meaning-horizon. And since the environment changes and our way of acting has to be modified in order successfully to keep a balanced connection with things, an isolated uniform way of acting becomes disastrous at some critical moment. The vaunted “skill” turns out gross ineptitude.”
- In Chapter 7, Dewey discusses the history and development of educational philosophy. I’ve included a few quotes from this section… on how to achieve a stable society…
“The first one to be considered is that of Plato. No one could better express than did he the fact that a society is stably organized when each individual is doing that for which he has aptitude by nature in such a way as to be useful to others (or to contribute to the whole to which he belongs); and that it is the business of education to discover these aptitudes and progressively to train them for social use.”
- Dewey hits on a concept I find very compelling… the actual purpose of education…
“The educational process was taken to be one of disciplinary training rather than of personal development.”
- With all the concern expressed about 21st century skills and the school’s use of 20th century techniques (We’re teaching our kids to live in today’s world, not tomorrow’s is a sentiment I’ve read…), Dewey states…
“Each generation is inclined to educate its young so as to get along in the present world instead of with a view to the proper end of education: the promotion of the best possible realization of humanity as humanity.”
So much for my ramblings on Dewey. Any comments?