I love John Dewey, and not just because of his cool hipster mustache (see below). It's amazing that Dewey lived a century ago, yet what he believed and wrote about education is just as applicable in today's society as it was in the early 1900s.
Here's some context: Dewey lived during a revolutionary time in the United States, during an era of progressive social reforms. The country was moving away from an agrarian society into an industrialized one, when children transitioned from working on farms to working in factories. Factories were not safe, but it's important to note that children played a vital role in society and they had mentors while they worked. An influx of immigrants and poor working conditions led to child labor laws, a mandatory school attendance law, and reforms to the justice system so that juveniles would not be tried and incarcerated with adults. These factors led to the idea of early adolescence as being an isolated stage of development, separated from society and many would argue that this stigma about middle school prevails today. I just finished reading The School and the Society and The Child and the Curriculum, which Dewey wrote in the early 1900s amidst this social change. Dewey pointed out several things that schools were doing wrong: teaching subjects in isolation, ignoring current technology, treating school as an entity separate from society, treating children like cups and "filling them with knowledge." (Any of that sound familiar?) He argued that just as society was changing, so should the school system. Here are some of Dewey's thoughts and mine. 1. What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children. 2. When society changes, education must change too. For school should not be separate from society, a place isolated from the world. It must play a valuable role in society. 3. Society is full of collaboration, so students must learn to collaborate in the classroom. 4. We must teach children a love of serving their communities and provide them with instruments of effective self-direction. 5. The "center of gravity" in the educational system must be the child. The child is first. The curriculum is second. The curriculum should address the immediate social needs of the children. 6. Students must inquire, communicate, construct, and apply what they're learning through artistic expression. This reflects the learning process. 7. The school should be a place where the student REALLY LIVES, where she may gain a life experience in which she should delight and find meaning for its own sake. 8. School life and home life should not be isolated things. There is a gap between what we experience at home and what we do at school. Students should use what they learn at home and school and use what they learn at school at home. School and social life must be connected. (Dewey would totally back a BYOD policy.) 9. Students should study things in relation to their real-life context. 10. Subjects should be taught in an interconnected way. All studies grow out of relation in one great common world and the school is an organic whole. 11. Students NEED choice in school. They need to have control over what and how they're learning. If we are charged with preparing today's youth for the democratic process, we must teach them to take risks, make their own choices, and stand behind those choices. Otherwise, how can we expect them to do this when they are adults. 12. Develop is not only demonstrating knowledge on an assessment, it's gaining knowledge through experience and demonstrating knowledge through application. Dewey's theories had a great effect on education in the United States and deeply influenced progressive education, which really involved problem-based learning, teaching the whole child, individualized education, teaching interdisciplinary units rather than subjects in isolation, and addressing social issues and using children's interests to drive the curriculum. This leads me to ask myself, how can I be more like Dewey? Here are some goals I have to that end.
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Jill Zappiateacher, grad student, bibliophile Archives
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