http://dewey.pragmatism.org/creed.htm
John Dewey: A Significant Contributor to the Field of Educational Technology by Peter Rich and Thomas C. Reeves (2006)
For those of you randomly passing by my blog, John Dewey is revered as one of the coolest persons to exist in today's era. And by cool I mean influential and philosophically mind blowing especially in the field of Education. You should check out the long list of his works on the website. It's literally more than 4/5ths of the home page. Is combined works and writings fill up 37 volumes (Rich and Reeves). These just go to show you how much he has dedicated to the field. Also check out his creed which is 11 pages when copy and pasted into word.
His creed has plenty of interesting philosophies and points but the thing that stuck out most to me is his use of the word "power." Plenty of definitions and contexts arises when he used the word but the first that came to mind was a SUPER POWER! I mean it kind of makes sense. Educators are looking to allow kids to do something in the world, why not make it SUPER! So that's the framework for the rest of my reflection upon his piece.
Dewey starts off by defining what education is to him.
"I believe
that all education proceeds
by the participation of the individual in the social consciousness
of
the race. This process begins unconsciously almost at birth, and is continually
shaping the individual's powers, saturating his consciousness, forming his
habits, training his ideas, and
arousing his feelings and emotions... The most formal and technical education in the
world cannot safely depart from this general process. It can only organize it; or differentiate it in
some particular direction."
Fair enough. It pretty much says that super heroes are born with their innate super abilities and need to be developed. Dumping them into radioactive waste won't magically make them super and definitely won't help them learn how to control their abilities. These abilities slowly develop and start showing signs. They won't know what to do with them but they randomly appear like Harry accidentally making the glass disappear and allowing the snakes to run free. We'll call these the Interests that the students start to notice.
In all the super hero movies and stories, how do they start to control their power? Their power is often caused by some emotion. Then the mentor says, "think about what you were feeling when it first happened accidentally" and then it works. Same thing with the kids says Dewey! You can't foster and develop their interests without relating the to some experience they have. Make the curriculum relevant to the students!
" In order to know what a power
really is we must know what its end, use, or function is; and this we cannot know save as we conceive of
the individual as active in social relationships. But, on the other hand, the
only possible adjustment which we can give to the child under existing
conditions, is that which arises through putting him in complete possession of all his powers."
Dewey puts special emphasis on social relationships and experiences helping foster knowledge and that schools are meant to develop these special communities. Think about it. We want the right students to bring the super power to the good side. We don't need any Sith lords' influences.
The lines of "putting the child under existing conditions," made me think of simulations. The ideas and philosophy of Dewey paved the way for thinking of many of the games and simulations that kids use in classrooms. The idea is to bring real life experiences to them while scaffolding the difficulty of real life or else Dewey argues it would be overwhelming. You can't just throw Superman as a teenager into a battle that involves the entire Justice League! (Forget about the discrepancy in the timeline and just run with the analogy please.) Simulations have finally started to become useful and realistic with today's technology. Think about the matrix and how they used simulations to learn how to jump really far or practice martial arts.
There's a bunch of other things that are mind opening about Dewey's works but I don't have the time to get into it all. I hope you enjoyed reading. Come back for more in a week!
Vi, I like the idea of power when talking about kids. It is probably the last term that you would assign or think about when referring to them. As parents we do all the thinking for them until they are in their late teen. At 18 and 21 they get their power. No wonder so many don't know how to use it. Dewey's idea of assigning power and intellect at birth would enable kids to know their own power and learn how to use it. Teachers would not try to take this power but teach kids how to best use it in social relationships and to gain knowledge through experience.
ReplyDeleteVi,
ReplyDeleteI like the metaphor, and I agree with the assertion that we need to leverage students' interest in order to educate them in the way we should. Now, consider what Tim (our visitor) said about the logistics of accessing everyone's interests. I challenge you to think about how we could use technology to do that.