An impossible conversation with John Dewey
Musings on Dewey's beliefs on the goal of Education, the role of the School, and the 4 principles of effective learning
Hello friends and welcome to the first edition of 2021! While 2021 started out with some terrifying mob-like madness over at the Capitol, we're crossing our fingers and keeping our hopes up that 2021 will kick 2020's ass.
We closed off 2020 with a discussion of the debate between Dewey and Snedden, and how even though Dewey's romantic ideals resonate with many educators, Snedden's pragmatic vocationalism eventually won. As we were consuming secondhand research on the topic, we found ourselves growingly curious about Dewey's work.
When we were first introduced to Dewey, we were very much mesmerized by his ideals of personalized child-centric education. After reading Dewey's selected works, we decided to imagine what a conversation with Dewey would look like in the 21st century. Join us today, as we attempt to reconstruct an impossible conversation with John Dewey (through his books and writings, of course).
An Impossible Conversation with John Dewey
Welcome, John! Can you tell us a little bit about your world? We're speaking to you from 2020, so I'm guessing times are hella different in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Thanks for having me here on EdMuse! I was born in 1859, and I published most of my work between 1899 and the late 1930s. I spent my formative years in the thick of the Second Industrial Revolution (which began in the 1860s and lasted until World War I in 1914), a period of rapid innovation and industrialization. The 20th century was also a time when mass production brought automobiles and other technology to the masses. Huge military investments also sped up advancements of the electronic computer and jet engines. It is an interesting time to be alive, and you can say I've lived through a lot.
What does Education mean to you?
I believe that true education comes through the stimulation of the child's powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself. Education should help children to join in the social consciousness of the human race, to participate and share in our inherited resources, and also use their powers for social ends.
Is Education like a thread that weaves the yarn (a.k.a us) of the human race? And so what is the role of the School in this situation?
Yes. In Moral Principles in Education (1909) I talk about how the ethical responsibility of the school is to advance the welfare of society. And the school has to be designed with this function in mind. In the simplest way, schools are a form of community life where multiple agencies (administrators and teachers) come together to create a social institution that is most effective in bringing the child to join the society.
A school is primarily a social institution that should extend the values nurtured in home life. It should not be a place for information. The child is born into home life, and that is the only experience that is real and relevant for the child. Thus the school has to extend this experience of the child and grow gradually out of home life. Life is complex and the school has to simplify it for the child and secure continuity in the child's growth since young.
The best way to prepare children for social life is for them to engage in life. School should not be a place where information is given mindlessly to the child, or where lessons are learned or habits are formed. Because this implies that Education is merely a preparation for the things the child has to do in the future. It does not make sense to prepare the child for life without the child actually engaging in it. That's like a swimming school that teaches kids the motions of swimming, without actually being in the pool.
I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living.
That's really interesting because if you ask a lot of parents and students in 2020, they would tell you that they go to school to prepare them for a good career after they graduate. Beneath that practical reason is an individualistic desire to succeed, often in monetary terms. Which is in stark contrast to what you believe Education is about - the social good.
Often, the moral responsibility of the school is taken in a very rigid and narrow sense - that we only need to train the child for citizenship in the form of law-abiding citizens and to vote when they're called to. But the role of a citizen is much more than that. I outlined four main roles of a child in Moral Principles in Education (1909):
The child is a voter and a subject of law
The child is a member of a family and rearing of future children
The child is a worker who is productive to the society
The child is a member of a community
Well, it seems like schools are quite good at number 1 - we've been taught from day one to follow rules and regulations.
Students are told to keep quiet in class, to obtain a hall pass when they need the bathroom, not to run in the hallways. These are rules and regulations they have to abide by in school. Children are trained to become law-abiding students, but the rules they abide by are actually arbitrary. These rules are put in place so that schools can function, but these are actually not life duties. But the ethical principles for life inside and outside of school are one and should be the same. It is also not about the child having the same motives for doing the right thing by the standards of the school, but for the child to apply the same principles in wider social life.
What we fail to notice is that if the school is only focused on bringing up law-abiding citizens who can work in given jobs, how can society prosper? And besides, it is impossible to train any child for any fixed station in life.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by that? Because what we're seeing in Education nowadays, especially in Higher Education, is an increasing emphasis on vocationalism. According to the University of California, Los Angeles’s annual survey of freshmen entering four-year colleges and universities, roughly 85 percent say they are going so they can get a job.
But if they can graduate with the right skills to contribute to society (e.g. doctors, nurses, teachers), why is that bad?
It is my belief that society changes too quickly for our children to be trained for a fixed role. If we cannot predict the future, it is impossible to prepare the child for a precise set of conditions. If by the time the child becomes an adult and is left with a "station" that is no longer relevant or needed, they end up becoming someone the society has to care for. Thus the ethical responsibility of the school is to train the child to have possession of themselves so that they may take charge of themselves.
Furthermore, vocational education perpetuates an existing industrial regime. I do not believe in an education that adapts workers to a status quo. Society's progress comes from altering the existing industrial system and transforming it for the better. Industrial education to me is a preparation for a life of curiosity, cultivation of intelligence and observation of social problems and conditions, and development of initiative, ingenuity, and executive capabilities. Even if a child would grow up to be a doctor, he or she should learn more than how to perform a surgery, but also what it means to be ethical.
If that is the case, what classes should the child be taking?
The misconception is to design the curriculum around subject matters or classes like science, literature, and mathematics. The focus and backbone of the child's learning should be his social life and activities. Social life forms the unity behind all the efforts and attainment of the child, not subject matter. Social activities like cooking, sewing, manual training, etc are not special studies for relaxation, but should actually be the fundamental social activities that are then used to introduce the formal subjects like science, history, and mathematics.
For example, language is fundamentally a social instrument. It is a tool society uses to share ideas and emotions. When a language is taught as a core curriculum, it is used as a means of showing what the child has learned in the classroom. In such a case, language loses its social meaning. Imagine if a child can learn about agriculture or genetically modified crops while cooking - isn't that wonderful?
It does sound wonderful, but also sounds like a very non-linear way of learning.
That's where I disagree. This "linear" way of learning that we are familiar with in schools - prerequisite classes, standard curriculum - are not reflective of the natural order of life.
Since a child is born, their life has all aspects of science, art, culture, and communication. If Education and Life is one and the same, then how can it be true that proper studies for one grade are mere reading and writing, and then at a later grade, other subject matters like science and literature can be introduced?
There also cannot be a classification of subjects. Classification is not natural to a child's experience. Things do not come to the child pigeon-holed. On the contrary, all of life's experiences are tied together with the connecting bonds of affection and activity. In that case, sending the child for seemingly unrelated classes is forcing the child to separate and piece back together with their experiences.
Thus, learning that is centered around the child's experiences is actually naturally more linear to a child.
Can you tell us more about learning through experiences instead of theory?
The subject matter is but nutritive information. It cannot digest itself without the mind. By itself, it is mere information. The child, who owns the mind, has to understand and interpret what is given to them. And the child can only effectively do so if it is relatable to what they have experienced so far. Treating subject matter as though it is useful after it is merely absorbed, results in "study" becoming a synonym for what is irksome, and a lesson identical with a task.
The child's own instincts and interests should be the starting point for all education and influence the learning material. I believe that education that does not occur through life deadens the experience of learning. It is also haphazard and arbitrary. If education is only valuable to the child in the remote future (like learning scientific theories that are only useful if the child gets a relevant job as an adult), education becomes merely preparation. Education becomes a prerequisite of something else the child has to do in the future. Then, learning becomes detached from the child's life experience and not truly educational.
The role of the teacher, in this case, is simply to provide guidance for the child to learn from the discipline of life. Teachers should use their experience and wisdom to guide, and not just to transfer information to the child. Examinations should also be used insofar as to gauge progress and determine areas of improvement, and nothing more.
I believe that expressive or constructive activities should be the center of learning. Learning should allow the child to build on previous experiences, as opposed to being presented in a purely objective form, seemingly unrelated to a child's experiences. Education is a continuing reconstruction of a person's experience, and thus the process and the goal of education are actually one and the same.
Then it seems like Education is a lot like life, isn't it? The goal and process of life are also one and the same. Some educators, including your ardent admirers, have argued that your philosophy on Education is highly romanticized and impractical for implementation. Can you tell us, in a practical sense, how an ideal curriculum looks like?
The first step is to construct the right educational aims that will guide the curriculum. To have an aim is to act with meaning and intention. It also allows us to act consciously and intelligently. However, I want to make clear that an abstract idea like Education has no aim. Aim by nature belongs to persons, teachers, parents, and students.
A key characteristic of an aim is that it involves a foresight of results; a prediction of cause and effect. Before we can even foresee the results, we have to observe the current conditions (evaluation of available methods and possible obstacles), plan the proper sequence of actions and be aware of alternative results and decide the most desirable ones.
A good aim has to fulfill three main criteria -
Firstly, it has to be relevant to the current conditions. What good is an aim that is irrelevant to a child's intrinsic activities and needs? An educational aim has to include the child's original instincts and acquired habits. More often than not, we tend to set aims from an adult's perspective and not the child's. We also set uniform aims that can easily be standardized from child to child, neglecting the fact each child has different strengths and require different things. Learning is personal to an individual, at any time and place. But yet, we think that we can benefit from an aim that is standardized for every child. It is one thing to use our experience and knowledge as adults to guide and survey a child's progress, but it is quite another to think that we can set a fixed and inflexible aim without any considerations of a child's current conditions.
I just want to add here - that we've observed that our society is increasingly frustrated with an emphasis on standardized testing. Manchester High School math teacher, Kate Dias, said "You have students who have lots of skills and abilities and talents that are in no way shape or form reflected on standardized assessments. We have dismissed all of those because unless it’s reflected in these specific categories, we are essentially saying we aren’t going to worry about that, we are not going to value that. And I think that’s the dismissive nature of testing". After decades of misbelieving that standardized tests are good for every child, we're really starting to see the shortfall of such an approach.
Yes, secondly, an aim cannot be formed without a concurrent attempt to realize them. An aim implies a foresight of results, and since we're not able to predict future conditions, an aim must be flexible and grow as it is being put to the test. Aims in education must first emerge as a tentative sketch. As we test its worth, it is only natural that we revise the original aim to meet our ever-changing circumstances. This is why I believe that aims have to come internally, as opposed to an external authority. External aims are rigid while internal aims are working every day with the current conditions. The problem of inflexible educational aims is rooted deeply in our education system. Teachers simply do not have the authority or power to follow their instincts. They are confined to this top-down approach, and this translates to the same frustration that students have.
An aim is only valuable if it helps the educator observe, evaluate, and plan effectively. If an aim gets in the way of an educator's own common sense, it really does more harm than good; problems can arise when the educational aim is enforced externally.
Because of the Covid pandemic, we're starting to see some of the tensions that arise from external aims. Teachers are starting to realize the limits of one-size-fits-all schooling. Some students are performing better with remote learning, while others are struggling to stay focused. Educators are also realizing that before Covid, they've been so focused on achieving grades and rushing from class to class that they've forgotten the importance of truly empathizing with the needs of the children and their families. This just shows how important it is that the aim of Education is flexible and can grow with circumstances.
That's right. This actually ties in with the third criteria - aims cannot restrict actions and activities. An aim, like a shooting target, is only a mark that we specify. It cannot replace the importance of the actual activity of hitting that target. For example, a hunter is aiming to shoot the deer. The hunter does not want just a dead deer. The hunter is interested in the act of hunting itself. To have a narrow-minded focus on the aim is to imply that activity is unimportant on its own, and is just a necessary evil that someone has to go through.
It sounds like you're saying that even the aim of Education cannot be one-size-fits-all. The goal of Education, at the end of the day, is to fit children into society. But how this is done has to be personalized for each child. Personalization sounds great, but are there any principles of learning that you believe can benefit all children?
Yes. In My Pedagogic Creed, I talk about four guiding principles of learning that are crucial to a child's learning.
First - active learning will always trump passive learning. I believe that the latter is the reason why a lot of the time spent studying is wasted on the child. When students are thrown into a passive or absorbing attitude, it goes against their law of nature. And the result is friction and waste. It is futile to develop a child's power of reasoning and judgment if they are not able to actively experience what they're learning.
Second - training a child to form proper images out of any information presented to him is the best method of instruction. I believe that teachers should spend less time preparing and presenting lessons, but instead, direct that time and energy to help children visualize and connect what they've learned to their arsenal of experiences.
Third - a child's interests are the signs and symptoms of growing powers and are something educators have to harness. A child's interests are a reflection of their state of development and the best indication of a child's potential. If an educator can go below the surface and carefully observe a child's interests, they can then fully develop the child's intellectual curiosity and alertness.
Lastly - a child's emotions are a reflex of actions, and there is no greater evil than to divorce feeling from actions. Educators should welcome emotions in classrooms, as they are part of the learning process.
I love that a lot of emphases here is on the relationship between the teacher and child. There are many who think that the role of the teacher can be replaced with technology. What many learning apps are actually replacing is someone who is simply imparting information on the student, but according to you, the role of a teacher is much more than that. In a way, it is good that technology has forced us to reexamine the role of a teacher.
Yes, I believe that teachers have a greater calling - he or she is crucial in the formation of proper social life. I believe that a teacher's calling is to maintain proper social order and secure the right social growth and progress. I believe that in this way the teacher always is the prophet of the true God and the usher in of the true kingdom of God.
That pretty much sums up our conversation today. Thanks, John, for enlightening us. It's been an eye-opening interview and we definitely have a lot to think about from here on.
Concluding Thoughts
We can't shake off the feeling that we've only scratched the surface with Dewey, and at the same time we find ourselves struggling with the romanticism of his ideas.
Our research into Dewey's writings is followed by more questions than answers. How does Dewey's vision translate into a modern 21st-century classroom? How can we provide a personalized education for the child, while keeping education affordable for everyone? If Dewey is alive today, what would he think of the EdTech companies that are seemingly promoting a personalized child-centric education? Is Artificial Intelligence the technology Dewey was waiting for to achieve his ideals?
If you're looking for more discussions on critical pedagogy amidst technology, you can check out Sean Michael Morris's work at the Digital Pedagogy Lab. He has a great article talking about If Bell Hooks Made an LMS. Also be sure to check out Jesse Stommel's and Pete Rorabaugh's Hybrid Pedagogy, where they also talked about If Freire Made a MOOC.
Thank you for reading! Whether you agree or disagree with what we've written, we love having conversations around Education. So we hope you'll reach out. Drop us a comment below! If you like what we’re doing, subscribe and follow us below. Until then, see you next week. 👋