Hello, hello! I hope that everyone is well and has gotten a lot accomplished in the past few days. :)
I was a little uncertain as to how I should approach the four articles by Dewey, and contemplated several methods, but ultimately decided to read them in them in the chronological order in which he wrote them. I was hoping that by doing this I would be able to see his theories progressing over time, and to my delight, I felt that I was able to do so. So my first, and very informal question for you is, what order did you read the articles in, how or why did you choose this sequence, and do you feel that by doing so it provided you with any additional insights or perspectives into the readings or Dewey himself?
In "Democracy in Education" Dewey begins Section 1- "As to the teacher" by discussing the lack of teacher input into the educational system. He states "Indeed, the opposite situation is so common that it seems, as a rule, to be absolutely taken for granted as the normal and final condition of affairs" (p.195).
Given that we all come from different experiences and educational systems, I was thinking we could discuss this more along the lines of how other people that we have read, such as Apple or Anyon, might respond to this statement.
In the same article, at the bottom of p. 196- top of p.197, Dewey describes a very scripted curriculum and how restrictive this can be for the teacher. He presents what he feels will be presented as the opposing argument to his ideals. I have pulled what I felt were some key words from that selection... "This state of things, while an evil, is a necessary one... without it confusion and chaos would reign... such regulations are the inevitable accompaniments of any graded system... The average teacher is incompetent to take any part in laying out the course of study or in initiating methods of instruction or discipline."
My question is... Is this argument still used to 'justify' (for lack of a better term) a scripted curriculum (or ultimately a traditional curriculum)? Regardless of if this aligns with your personal preferences for teaching and/or learning, do you think that this argument for a traditional curriculum (and I'm referring to its use for academic knowledge as described in the article ("reading, writing, spelling, and arithmetic officially laid down; outline topics in history and geography are ready-made for the teacher..."[p.196]), is ever valid? If so, when and why? If not, why not?
Last question from "Democracy in Education"- On p. 198 Dewey begins the second paragraph with "The system which makes no great demands upon originality..."
Reflect on this paragraph and how you feel it relates to the current state of education (feel free to interpret that word as you wish).
Jumping right through to the last two pages of "The Educational Situation", Dewey states "We have been trying for a long time to fix a curriculum upon a basis of certain vague and general education ideals: information, utility, discipline, and culture" (p.117). He continues by explaining that these are not the ideal methods, but rather "to study the typical necessities of social life, and the actual nature of the individual in his specific needs and capacities" (p.118).
Do you see evidences of this in curriculum that you have encountered or in the works of other theorists? Given that this article was written 100 years ago, how do you feel that our system has progressed in this respect?
In "Education for a Changing Social Order", Dewey states that many students "leave school with the attitude of wanting and expecting to be told, rather than with the attitude of realizing that they must look into things, must inquire and examine" (p.99).
Do you feel that this is true today? If so, at what levels of schooling? What do you attribute it to? Have the reasons changed at all in 82 years?
Ok, I am going to stop there for now. I've got lots of ideas about "Experience and Education", but I think we have somewhere to start for now, and if we need more to chat about, we can add in more as the days progress. Have a great week!
Hi all,
ReplyDeleteMackinley, thank you for your questions.
I will begin by answering your first question regarding the order I chose to read the article. I started reading Education for a Changing Social Order, simply because it echoed what we had been discussing this week, then Experience and Education, and Democracy in Education. I am not done yet with the last one.
Regarding your question on "Education for a Social Order", I have the impression that the students I have been in contact with in the last few years (since I came to the US) had this tendency of wanting to know what they would be tested on specifically, asking for review packets for example. However, this might be due to the nature of what I taught: languages. I have observed a significant difference between the cultures of the people I have had in a classroom, and found that students from some cultures (Chinese in particular) tend to ask for ready to absorb-vomit lists of vocabulary words (John had a similar experience), lists of grammatical points, etc, when I in fact did not teach grammar per se. This again might be due to so many factors, and not only the way these students were taught in the past. Indeed, because they have a standardized test called the Gaokao at the end of high school which determines which college they can attend, they cram for years to be able to answer the questions on this test. The students I mentioned come straight out of high school, and keep habits they developed previously. At the University where I taught in Paris, my students (freshmen and sophomores) started with the expectation that I would tell them what was worth knowing, but we quickly decided together, even though we had an already set curriculum with "fundamental texts". I was teaching American Civilization and we used these texts to discuss primarily issues of power, immigration and marginalization in the US from the legal perspective, because most of my students had expressed their interest in this and were from immigrant families with very limited income. Many of them ended up creating/participating in the local student government, not because of what we discussed in the class, but because they already had this background interest, had been shut down for years and were finally in college where they thought they could actually weight in some decisions.
In the middle school where I worked, students in social sciences were asked to examine documents based on what the teacher had told them, but I cannot say they left school with the attitude described by Dewey. They might have left middle school this way, but I don't know about high school or even college.
The group of students that I found the most interested in looking into things, inquiring and examining was the men I met when I taught social sciences in a prison. Even though being back in a semi-school setting was mainly an excuse for them to avoid being in their cells, they (some of them) constantly challenged what was written in the textbooks. However, not all of them were able to read/write, which also created a very different learning environment based on discussions and drawings mainly.
To wrap-up, I cannot say I that "expecting to be told" is the norm. Previous habits and age might be factors, what the content being told plays a role, and social backgrounds might also weight, but I cannot say this without feeling that these statements are only based on my experience in two different countries and with very different groups each time. I have not taught a "same" population more than 2 years, which limits the validity of my statement.
Thanks for sharing your story Emma. You and I have talked about the cultural backgrounds; the Gaokao example was a good example. For me, that cultural background reminds me of Truth. When we think the concept of Truth, and any practices and minds under that "T" hegemony, "expecting to be told" seems natural. My thinking might be biased (based on Davis), but this thought keep resonating with me when thinking about what and why made students to expect to be passive and receive the Truth from the "noble" teachers. It is very common still where I teach.
DeleteI have no experience in middle and high schools in the US, but in college level, I think students are more active in their learning, not expecting to be told, but expecting to talk. One interesting example could be this story: my classmates for my master's program was a harshly complaining about a class that is dominantly given in lecture-type, not allowing students to talk and discuss. There I see that the "expecting to be told" is driven by the teacher, not by the students probably.
Your example of the social sciences in a prison reminds me of my math teacher at high school (maybe you remember that I graduated from an Airforce high school). My math teacher helped us think critically, by saying, "guys, tear this page out and throw away, this textbook knows nothing, but just makes you feel stupid." The subject was derivative and integral, and I have never seen that simple and easy-to-understand class about those notorious subjects. He did the honest class to let us know the topic with simple and easy terms. This story seems not 100% related to our topic, but the teacher was remaining to me as to going critical against the notion of "expecting to be told". What do you think?
Thanks John for sharing your experience.
DeleteI would agree with you that age or level of education might play a role is being passive/active, but I think it also depends on so many other factors, such as the way instructors teach (lecture/class discussions), the nature of the readings/work, and what the topic is. For example, when I was teaching French at OU, students were passive in a way that they expected me to tell them linguistic and meta-linguistic aspects (how to pronounce, vocab, gender, singular/plural, conjugations, what is a direct pronoun...) However, they were active in that they interacted with each other and with me, had questions and sometimes experiences in France/with French/French speaking people and were interested in discussing cultural aspects such as how people interact, diversity in France, history, etc. What I think plays a role in the way students position themselves, in this case, is whether they have prior knowledge of the topic or not. Many of them discovered the concepts of gender and conjugation in this class, for example. Many of them had never been exposed to Spanish in an environment enabling them to catch similarities between romance languages.
I cannot think of a class I have had in this department where the instructor lectured even though professors use the time in class very differently. However, when I took a class in Communication (same semester as Theoretical Issues), I constantly asked questions and challenged (not in a bad way) what the prof was saying, while most of the students in the room just drank what he said, even when some of us could prove him wrong. So again, the style of professors and the relationship they create with students are factors that play a role. I know a few TA in this same department who started teaching by only lecturing and had terrible reviews because students felt they were not heard. These TAs were simply imitating what they are used to.
So let me ask you this: If you "leave school with the attitude of wanting and expecting to be told, rather than with the attitude of realizing that they must look into things, must inquire and examine", what type of teacher do you become?
Thanks for sharing your experience and thoughts Emma! Reading your comment, Bruner popped up in my head with his emphasis on the "culture" in a class. We teachers are one of the contributors of making a culture in class (e.g., lecturing vs. interactive). I agree also with you up to the point of students' positioning in the culture. Yes, it resides in a really dynamic relation.
DeleteTo respond your question, I would say that I want to be a teacher who can help/guide/encourage students to bear the "active" attitude of realizing that they must inquire, examine, and take a look into things. This course has changed (evolved) my teaching. From readings and discussions in our classes, now whenever I stand in a classroom to teach I really see the deep-structured-hidden-curriculum's effect on students. We know that the hidden impact of our class is more significant, lasts longer, than the subject matters in the superficial level. Last night, for example, my students had a good discussion by themselves on a grammar mistake and meaning of new vocabularies. I gave them enough time to talk to reach a consensus, at the beginning they seemed to a bit lost, but after few seconds, I saw their confidence and active dialogue to delve into their own meaning-making. In that moment, I remember Noddings, Bernstein, and Dewey, as in which way I think that my students were implicitly introduced to the democratic ways of thinking, meaning-making, and living. We know that pedagogically it is more effective for students to grapple with the meanings by themselves using their hands and dialogues (than just giving them info); however, what's more significant here is the hidden impact of our pedagogy regarding teaching them the ways of thinking through what we and they do (including the relations) in a class. Thus, my answer is that I will do my best to realize the second attitude in my students life (ways of "active" thinking, perceiving, and meaning-making) through my teaching. What about you?
PS.
I see some connections between Dewey and Bernstein with regards to the hidden impact of curriculum to students' mind (expecting to be told passively for example), thus which impacts their life beyond the school doors, and thus which eventually impacts our society as a whole. What do you think about this interpretation?
Emma you mentioned... "If you "leave school with the attitude of wanting and expecting to be told, rather than with the attitude of realizing that they must look into things, must inquire and examine", what type of teacher do you become?"
DeleteI would prefer to flip this question a bit and ask if one "leave(s) school with the attitude of wanting and expecting to be told, rather than with the attitude of realizing that they must look into things, must inquire and examine", how does that affect the aims of education, what knowledge is seen as, what learning and teaching are (or become), and how the learner is viewed?
I feel like it has significant implications. What do you think?
I agree with you Mackinley. If we leave school with the former mindset, the impact is huge. It may (most likely will) keep producing students, people, thus this whole society to some extent, as passive thinkers. What knowledge would be in this mindset? I think "K"nowledge concept would be grounding in this situation, as the students are not expected to ask quesions, rather just receive and consume the "K"noledge. I see SA ideology and the metaphysical notions (gnosis and epistme) here. What do you think?
DeleteThat's very similar to what I was thinking, and I think that is perhaps the mindset that Dewey was trying to ruffle the feathers of a bit. I think he would, or is saying, that the top down transfer of knowledge leads to a somewhat apathetic and possibly even somewhat unmotivated learner that expects for the information and knowledge to be given to them.
DeleteUnfortunately we already see evidences of this at the lowest levels of elementary education with students who have learned somewhere along the line that it is their job to sit quietly, listen, and receive the information that the teacher gives them. (One school I taught in for a very brief period of time had a team of 1st grade teachers who did not allow their students to get out of their seats or speak at all during the day while "doing work", which was a very high percentage of the day. In fact, I was ridiculed and harassed by my teammates because my kids sang (learning songs like "The Even and Odd Song") too loudly and our activities (like our smell lab, cloud observations, watermelon picnic, class book writing, and daily poetry reading) were too distracting for the other first graders. Needless to say, thankfully my first graders were able to ask questions, inquire, and discover, but the other first graders were "raised" in a first grade class that basically taught them that all of those characteristics of a learner were undesirable. :(
Thanks for sharing your story. I agree with you that Dewey pointed out that "bigger" impact of the top-down type of teaching on students' mind. Your story reminds me of Dewey's emphasis on the elementary education. Elementary school experience will be, like many other experiences, very crucial and punchy to our kids and their life as a whole, because it is their very official first school experience. One irony is that we humans are really great to adapt to a new environment, e.g., different weather, culture, and others. Educational environment is no exception. I mean once teachers set that type of passive learning environment, and once students read that culture and figure our the expectations to get an "A" in the given setting, they are likely to adapt to that environment by becoming a passive learner. And probably another sad cycle would appear when they become adults towards their kids, and other people around them as they would think, act, and interact in that way.
DeleteHowever, on the other scenario, like your first graders' example, activeness stays with the students and probably with their next generations and others as well if their other school experiences foster the open-minded teaching. Hmm, this discussion led me to think the significance of collaboration across K-16 schools. Although students had a good impression about active learning in elementary school, like in your first grader class, they may change their mind in a middle school if the middle school has the opposite teaching environment. I was wondering, do we have this type of consortium, discussion across K-16 for this matter? What do you think?
ps. I really like the examples; smell lab and cloud observations! :)
Hi Mackinley, thanks for your good questions! :)
ReplyDeleteI also read the articles in chronological way, because simply I wanted to see connections between Dewey's thoughts in the past to present. Interestingly, (maybe it is carefully designed by Barbara and Alana), the four articles show different "scopes" from elementary, secondary, to the education as a whole, although the core underpinning message was aligning.
To answer your first introductory question, to me for some reason his tone seems stronger and more critical in his early articles than other latter. I think that maybe the social environment at that time (early 1900's) evoked him to use those strikingly powerful word choices such as, in Education in Democracy (1903) "imprisoning of the sprit" (p. 196) and "discount" when illustrating the second-handed materials (p. 200).
For some reason, however, the latter articles seem not have that critical terms, although his point is still sharp and critical. I could be incorrect, but in other words, the first article's word choices were more striking that others. What do you think?
And, the use of "evil" (p. 196, 197) as well. :)
DeleteHi John, I think I would agree with you regarding the evolution of his tone, but I would perhaps add that he leaves more room for debate, constructive discussion, or critique of other positions. Indeed, in "Experience and Education", he explains: "It is the business of an intelligent theory of education to ascertain the causes of the conflicts that exist and then, instead of taking one side or the other, to indicate a plan of operations proceeding from a level deeper and more inclusive than is represented by the practices and ideas of the contending parties." (p.241) He then continues, stating that this doesn't mean compromising or making an "eclectic combination"...
DeleteHi Emma, I really like how you put it, leaving room for debate, constructive discussion, and critiques. Great phrase! :)
DeleteThis discussion led me to think this thought: maybe Dewey left the room to the theorists and readers (including us in the 21st century) to "actively" take a look at what's going on in their present settings? I mean he seems to bear (and take an action of) the LC philosophy to his readers by "toning down" in the latter articles, rather than lecturing us. What do you think?
I don't know much about Dewey with regards to his work in the sense of a progression (as a timeline), but I wonder if part of the shift is that 30+ years of work in a field does provide some level of innate respect to any argument that one wants to make. Perhaps he also feels that at the point in which these later arguments were being made, the "resistance" was significantly less 'forceful' (for lack of a better term), meaning that perhaps the conversations were already beginning to be had in some respect, so a different approach was warranted.
DeleteWho knows? I wish I could ask him...
Yes, I also want to ask him lots of questions including this discussion and his major stance among the four ideologies as we discussed above. I like your point here. The historical environment at times may influence his argument "tone." Perhaps, early 1900s, he felt that he needs to use more active and punchy (Emma's favorite word recently lol) phrases to wake up people. Maybe later in 1970s and 1980s, he seemed feel toning down, or "less forceful" is more relevant. Thoughts? :)
DeleteYes, punchy is my word this year.
Delete:) I like the word too lol.
DeleteMackinley, for your second question, the "evil" use of scripted curriculum that restricted teachers' creativity and organic determination, may have been used in the past. People would have used the rational (teachers are incompetent) to justify the necessity of the written curriculum (among many other reasons). The problem here was (still probably is) the fact that the curriculum "makers" will not see teachers as organic meaning-makers thus contributors for the curriculum, but mere mechanics to deliver what's written in the manual. This makes me feel sick when I read actually.
ReplyDeleteBut, one good news even in 1903 was that we had "good" principals who give their teachers freedom and leeway to determine. Dewey, however, still mentioned that that kind of case was informal and rare. My question lining with this discussion is: what has it (leeway for teacher's contribution/determination) looked like in your teacher career? In the past? And at the present? We know this is not only the matter of what's happening in the admin side, but rather, the un-freed practices and mindset are influencing all across the society. I am curious about what's happening in the US currently, after about one hundred years later since Dewey wrote this article. What has it looked like in your career? Any thoughts or comments please?
Hi all,
ReplyDeleteI must say that this series of articles makes my understanding of Dewey even more difficult. I saw clear elements of LC ideologies in the article we read for class two weeks ago, but the ones I read this week are so much punchier that they seem to be more SR oriented when I look at the charts we built in class.
I understand he has evolved throughout his career, but I am now quite confused about his classification. In any case, is there really a need for classifying him? Doesn't it defeat part of the purpose progressives advocated?
Emma, I do agree with you. I also see several SR aspects in his articles this week. For example, in The Educational Situation (1906), he pointed out the social structural problems which seems tied with the SR's foundational thought; he went, "For problems do not arise arbitrarily. They come from causes, and from causes which are imbedded in the very structure of the school system - yes, even beyond that, in the structure of society itself" (p. 106). To me this lines seem related to SR to some extent. And, we see many more here and there.
DeleteWith this discussion in mind, I have been also thinking about how to classify Dewey, but, I think you brought up a really good thought of - do we really need to classify him? Maybe it is more "legitimate" to put him in the LC because his major assertions and foundational thoughts include more LCs than SRs? Or, Dewey can be a man for all seasons? I think I may see that he values the SA and SE for some extent as well (but still LC and SR would be main). So...maybe we see his stance as an overarching one between LC and SR, with more weight on LC? To answer your question, I would do this yin-and-yang locating, but not quite sure about it. What do you think?
PS.
One word catches my eyes on one of his cover pages was the word "sometime." In the cover page of The Educational Situation (1906), he put his bio as "SOMETIME PROFESSOR AND HEAD OF...." (p. 104). I was smiling when I read this word, because I thought Dewey put this word by considering next generations (us for example) to read his articles and the fluidity of society, history, and human life. What do you think about this word "sometime" here?