Tom's reaction to chapter One.
Chapter 1
Traditional versus Progressive Education
Recently I
completed reading What Hath God Wrought: The transformation of America from
1815-1848 by Daniel Walker Howe. I
mention this because the author refers to this time in American History as a
time of a “communication revolution”.
Whether it was people marveling at the (short) 78 days it took a ship to
travel from China to New York or the mind blowing speed at which the telegraph
allowed communication to occur, people marveled at the improvement of the speed
of communication. I mention this because
I believe we have deluded ourselves in the 21st century to think
that we live in a “special” time in which technological change is happening at
a pace never equaled before in the history of mankind. That assumption is just not true. Each stage
of history American history has undergone incredible changes that has
significantly impacted our society. In
other words, change is a constant and people living through it always believe
the change they are experiencing is the most significant ever. However, nothing is static.
In chapter One
of Experience and Education, Dewey criticizes the educational system because
society views subject matter and instruction as a static entity which has no
relevance to the lived experience of students.
“Moreover,
that which is taught is thought of as essentially static. It is taught as a finished product, with
little regard to the ways in which it was originally built up or to the changes
that will surely occur in the future. It
is to a large extent a cultural product of societies that assumed that the
future would be much like the past, and
yet it is used as educational food in a society where change is the rule and
not the exception” [my italics] (p. 19).
Two interesting
points. First, in 1938 when Dewey was
writing this book he recognized that societies are in a constant state of
change and, two, educators must not be fooled into thinking knowledge is static. If one believes that knowledge is static,
then viewing the world through what Dewey calls an “either-or” dichotomy will help you make
sense of the past but inhibits you in making sense of the present and future.
I believe
educators must embrace the grey area between the “either-or’s”. Educational reformers (I like to call them
deformers) have set the narrative of education to either-or. If you do not agree with what they want to do
to education, then you are against kids because what they want to do is all
that will work. This has resulted in an
intensification of the education philosophy that Dewey was speaking against:
teach the standards from an approved textbook and make a curriculum that is
imposed from outside the education system.
My dream for true educational transformation (and I know Duff Rearick is
rolling his eyes at my use of “transformation”) starts with educators (namely
teachers) working in the area between the either-or’s. This means, like Dewey mentions in chapter One,
that we understand what works and does not work in our current system and create
learning experiences for students that allows the subject matter to come alive
in the context of our current society.
We must create
an atmosphere in schools (or whatever iteration of schools the future holds)
where teachers are not imposing subject matter onto the students. Rather, the teacher will create experiences
(working with the students) that will contextualize the learning the student is
attempting to understand. The act of
creating experiences versus imposing “knowledge” increases the importance of
teachers in the educational system. They
are not just portals in which established knowledge is passed through to
students, they use their knowledge of the subject, the student, their community
and society to craft learning experiences which are meaningful. In effect, the act of creating experiences
professionalizes teachers.
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