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DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION.
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Analyzes the relevance and impact of John Dewey's seminal work DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION, as well as his other work.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Analyzes the relevance and impact of John Dewey's seminal work DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION, as well as his other work. Dewey's philosophical ideas & premises. Theory of Relevancy in education. Progressive education. His pedagogic creed.on the purpose of schools. How educators have accepted or taken issue with his premise. Contends Dewey did not write about Democracy as an ideal, but as a real fact.
Paper Introduction:
Democracy and Education
One of the primary problems of analyzing the relevance and impact of John Dewey’s seminal work, Democracy and Education, involves the task of separating the philosophical ideas that Dewey proposed in his work from the many ways he has been misinterpreted today. A thorough reading of the book is necessary to determine what he believed was essential in the concept of educating for democracy. Only the most hardened cynic would attempt arguments against Dewey’s supposition in Chapter 7, (when he begins tying his generalized thoughts into more specific assumptions) that “education is a social function, securing direction and development in the immature through their participation in the life of the group to which they belong, is to say in effect that education will vary with the quality of life
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The logical conclusion is that the ground of obedience lies ultimately in superior force. As we can see in his laterworks, he was compelled to clarify and expand this position, since herealized that his observations and ratiocinations had been accepted asdogma. Yet educators and social commentators tookissue with that premise, since the very concept of variability was anathemato the prevailing educational beliefs. 82) At this point in his argument, he has introduced the concept of"relevance" (one man having relative relationships with other men andfinding only tangential bonding.) He follows this by arguing that The problem is to extract the desirable traits of forms of community life which actually exist, and employ them to criticize undesirable features and suggest improvement. 22), Dewey and the Threat of Tyranny of theMajority, Perspectives on Political Science, 2 6. It conceives the school as a place where certain information is to begiven, where certain lessons are to be learned, or where certain habits areto be formed" (Creed, 1897, Online). Fott's observation of Dewey's lack of political sophistication helpsbring this work into clearer analytical focus. Glenn, C.L. Eventually "the question arises as to the justification of the will which issues commands.... Growth itself is the only moral 'end.' Everything that promotes the growth of the child into a person who continues to grow through new experiences of shared problem solving is good education. [A few years later, Dewey amended this concept] Growth is not enough; we must also specify the direction in which growth takes place, the end towards which it tends. It is this one paragraph, it seems, that most of the followers ofDewey based their belief in "relevance" and progressive education, and thefurther belief that "preparation objectives" (reading, writing, math, andso on) were not as important as "developing social skills." This sameparagraph gave equal amounts of fuel to stoke the indignation of thetraditionalists who felt that learning should be the transmission ofcertain skill abilities. Thus he was faced with the challenge ofhandling two ideals in one concrete argument. Pedagogic Credo (1897) online athttp://www.barnard.edu/history/faculty/woloch/3461/dewey_creed.htm (1998, Sept. Written in 1916, Dewey's observations had a greatimpact on educational dogma that can still be sensed today. Fott suggests that Dewey is one of the most misunderstood socialphilosophers because an understanding of his ideas requires so much of the"problem solving" ideas he wrote so often about. Is Dewey correct to emphasize persuasion and communication and to de-emphasize will? In fact the idea of authority is abolished, and that of force substituted. Dewey did notsuggest this is the way it should be, but this is the way it is, as he sawit. Glenn (1999), writing in The Wilson Quarterly treads the same groundthat Dewey traveled in 1916 (with the exception of calling America aRepublic instead of a Democracy) and quotes a later work of Dewey's (afterconcurring wholeheartedly with Dewey's choice of Plato's definition ofeducation as movement away from inherited habits and understandings)(Dewey, 192 , 1924, quoted in Glenn, 1999, 57). I believe that much of present education fails becauseit neglects this fundamental principle of the school as a form of communitylife. Fott, D. 1944), Democracy and Education, New York: The FreePress. One man is concerned in a multitude of diverse groups, in which his associates may be quite different. 82). Only the most hardened cynic would attemptarguments against Dewey's supposition in Chapter 7, (when he begins tyinghis generalized thoughts into more specific assumptions) that "education isa social function, securing direction and development in the immaturethrough their participation in the life of the group to which they belong,is to say in effect that education will vary with the quality of life whichprevails in a group" (p. Instead of "what if", he had accidentally created an "it is." Thereal value of this book can be seen in a paraphrase of Alexander Pope'sedict about learning: "A little Dewey is a dangerous thing. Dewey's flaw in this waswriting about Democracy as if it were a real fact, verifiable in humanexperience, instead of as an ideal. Of course, the danger in this argument is that the "values bound up inhis home life" are not necessarily those values which promote beneficialcommunity. We can assume that thisreversal of course on Dewey's part was in some ways connected with thecriticism his thinking received as Democracy and Education became betterknown among educators and schools began using the criterion of "relevance"as a benchmark in curricular determination. For a clearer understanding of Dewey's concept of relevance, we mustturn to one of his earlier works, his Pedagogic Creed (1897), in which heargues succinctly that the purpose of both a school, and the educationattainable therein, was "to deepen and extend his sense of the values boundup in his home life. As a resultthey do not become a part of the life experience of the child and so arenot truly educative" (p. 81). In fact, much of the ensuing criticism against Dewey would have beenaverted had he but changed the phrase "quality of life" to the phrase "theprevailing political ideology" or, even more specific, "democratic ideals." That he did not choose to specify Democracy is apparent in the rhetoricwhich follows: Society is one word, but many things. Men associate together in all kinds of ways and for all kinds of purposes. Having decried the role of education as preparation for some end inthe future, Dewey was now arguing that the "growth" must be directed, andthe only place it could be directed is the future. Fott (1998), a noted Dewey authority and biographer takes the positionthat Dewey's knowledge of educational matters did not extend to thepolitical arena, and that the Democracy that Dewey always referred to wasnot the Democracy of the real world. Drink deep, ortaste not the Pyrean spring." References Dewey, H. Democracy and Education One of the primary problems of analyzing the relevance and impact ofJohn Dewey's seminal work, Democracy and Education, involves the task ofseparating the philosophical ideas that Dewey proposed in his work from themany ways he has been misinterpreted today. The next dialectical conclusion is that the will in question is something over and above any private will or any collection of such wills: is some overruling `general will (Fott, 1998, 2 6). (1916. Fott concludes his argument Particularly interesting is his claim that our individualistic way of thinking has led to a quantitative view of majority rule and "has put a false value upon mere uniformity." If liberal individualism is mainly responsible for the threat of tyranny of the majority, it is surprising that we do not see the argument made more prominently today (Fott, 1998, 2 6). A thorough reading of the bookis necessary to determine what he believed was essential in the concept ofeducating for democracy. 82). It often seems as if they had nothing in common except that they are modes of associated life (p. Against this ideal, he layered asecond ideal, that of Education. Dewey must be approached,he argued, as a man of ideas who saw connections and trends, and was hopingto present these trends in an analysis that would prompt discussion andanalysis among that class of society (Democracy or Republic) that was bestin the position to educate -- the teachers themselves. (1999, Sept. If, for instance, part of the home "values" of one student werethat theft is permissible, and the values of another students home lifesuggested that "theft" is a crime against society, then what kind of grouprelevance could be achieved? The Democracy Deweydiscussed was a Democracy of ideals, a concept rooted in Platonic andSocratic traditions wherein all members of a community agreed to socializeand share common goals, dreams and ideals. He clearly disdains social contract theory, which finds the origin of the state "in the meeting of the wills of individuals who come together and by contract or mutual pledging of loyalties bring a state into existence." The theory leads to the unacceptable view of laws of the state as commands from a superior will -- even if that will is the will of "the people" -- to inferior wills. 1), The Teachers' Muddle, The WilsonQuarterly, 52-59. Within the same paragraph, however, he avoidsturns his back on the specifics of the relevance argument and suggests,arguably correct, that education is the transmission of values and benefits"lying largely in the remote future; the child must do these things for thesake of something else he is to do; they are mere preparation. Now in any social group whatever, even in a gang of thieves, we find some interest held in common, and we find a certain amount of interaction and cooperative intercourse with other groups (p.
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