Educational Values

“All language, all symbols, are implements of an indirect experience; in technical language the experience which is procured by their means is ‘mediated.’” (p. 240).

This thought reminds me immediately of Wittgenstein, particularly when Dewey writes on the next page that

“…there is always a danger that symbols will not be truly representative; danger that instead of really calling up the absent and remote in a way to make it enter a present experience, the linguistic media of representation will become an end in themselves” (p. 241).

And this seems to me to be where public education is today.  Before Mabel was born plenty of people shared their parenting experiences and advice with me, however not having lived my own experiences very little of what was said held much meaning.  This I imagine parallels a student learning content from a text book, only in my case I knew that I would be having this experience; I listened to the stories and imagined myself in them.  For the student of say algebra, attaining information from given facts and formulas abstracted away from some individual’s experience, and without some obviously relevant connection to their own personal experience, learning in this way is at best mechanical and technical.

“Sufficient direct experience is even more a matter of quality; it must be of a sort to connect readily and fruitfully with the symbolic material of instruction. Before teaching can safely enter upon conveying facts and ideas through the media of signs, schooling must provide genuine situations in which personal participation brings home the import of the material and the problems which it conveys…

I read this as the creative act of teaching; providing genuine situations within a group or society which students are connected with in which problems emerge.

 …From the standpoint of the pupil, the resulting experiences are worth while on their own account; from the standpoint of the teacher they are also means of supplying subject matter required for understanding instruction involving signs, and of evoking attitudes of open-mindedness and concern as to the material symbolically conveyed” (pp. 241-242.)

“…the principle applies to the primary or elementary phase of every subject” (p. 242).

Earlier in the text Dewey wrote about the different ways of knowing, something like knowing how to do, how to communicate, and how to infer logically into different situations.  So far the discussion in this chapter seems to emphasize that the first of these is often overlooked or given very little attention.  Today as a teacher I am encouraged to post my lesson objectives on the board for students to see as I start class, and while this may include a “how to do” objective (based on standards, something like “write a paragraph with a topic sentence”) we tend to fail to make these objects relevant to our students, something which is “evoking attitudes of open-mindedness and concern as to the material symbolically conveyed.”  To me it seems that when the goals and objectives are of technical skills, they are too abstracted and isolated from meaningful experience to be of much value.  We’ve discussed using standards more like boundaries than objectives, and ideally the objectives would emerge from the social context, the teacher encouraging students to work within the boundaries of the standards to meet them.  Otherwise, formal education is purely technical, and given that public education does happen in a public place, within a society and community, approaching moral and social interactions in this way is potentially dangerous, at best mechanical and thoughtless.

“Without this vital appreciation, the duty and virtue of unselfishness impressed upon him by others as a standard remains purely a matter of symbols which he cannot adequately translate into realities” (p. 243).

“He may be trained externally to go through certain motions of analysis and division of subject matter and may acquire information about the value of these processes as standard logical functions, but unless it somehow comes home to him at some point as an appreciation of his own, the significance of the logical norms -- so-called -- remains as much an external piece of information as, say, the names of rivers in China. He may be able to recite, but the recital is a mechanical rehearsal” (p. 244).

“Only a personal response involving imagination can possibly procure realization even of pure ‘facts.’ The imagination is the medium of appreciation in every field. The engagement of the imagination is the only thing that makes any activity more than mechanical. Unfortunately, it is too customary to identify the imaginative with the imaginary, rather than with a warm and intimate taking in of the full scope of a situation” (p. 244).

I wrote above about imagining what it would be like to be a father, and then actually becoming one.  Imagination it seems to me is like the vine of theory as Dewey wrote in E&N, it must be tied on both ends to experience.  If it is not, then relating imagination to the imaginary is a fair criticism, but failing to see the role of imagination in problem solving I think would lead to failing to solve problems.  This theme is picked up and expanded on by Greene in “Releasing the Imagination” and I think is good to remember as we problem solve our teaching dilemmas. 

“…the difference between play and what is regarded as serious employment should be not a difference between the presence and absence of imagination, but a difference in the materials with which imagination is occupied” (p. 245).

Perhaps an epidemic of poor imagination is behind our criticisms of modern public education.  The materials for imagination in the teaching profession are not so much the content, but the experiences; to make them relevant to students, and the way in which content unfolds usefully (and memorably) to aid in solving problems.  I wonder though, if we collectively have poor imaginations, no real “how to do” ability here, how much more can we hope for our students?

 “At the outset, there is no sharp demarcation of useful, or industrial, arts and fine arts” (p. 246).

“This enhancement of the qualities which make any ordinary experience appealing, appropriable -- capable of full assimilation -- and enjoyable, constitutes the prime function of literature, music, drawing, painting, etc., in education. They are not the exclusive agencies of appreciation in the most general sense of that word; but they are the chief agencies of an intensified, enhanced appreciation. As such, they are not only intrinsically and directly enjoyable, but they serve a purpose beyond themselves. They have the office, in increased degree, of all appreciation in fixing taste, in forming standards for the worth of later experiences. They arouse discontent with conditions which fall below their measure; they create a demand for surroundings coming up to their own level. They reveal a depth and range of meaning in experiences which otherwise might be mediocre and trivial. They supply, that is, organs of vision. Moreover, in their fullness they represent the concentration and consummation of elements of good which are otherwise scattered and incomplete. They select and focus the elements of enjoyable worth which make any experience directly enjoyable. They are not luxuries of education, but emphatic expressions of that which makes any education worth while” (pp. 246-247).”

I would add that teaching is an industrial art.  Encouraging imaginative teachers, who effectively problem solve and model these skills, and who have the capacity to take risks (as artist must) seems central to what Dewey would hope for in public education.  Then if we approach the arts as having the office of making ordinary experiences appealing (I’m reminded of his comments on science in the curriculum, to think about ordinary experiences scientifically, not to master some scientific content) and education as maybe the art of making all experiences interesting and appealing, appropriable and capable of full assimilation, I think we come to moral and aesthetic value in public education.

“Intrinsic values are not objects of judgment, they cannot (as intrinsic) be compared, or regarded as greater and less, better or worse” (p. 247).

“Things judged or passed upon have to be estimated in relation to some third thing, some further end” (p. 247).

The two citations above demonstrate two ways of valuing things, which Dewey expands upon quite a bit in E&N.  Given the next citation I feel that education in general is an intrinsic value.

“Certain conclusions follow with respect to educational values. We cannot establish a hierarchy of values among studies. It is futile to attempt to arrange them in an order, beginning with one having least worth and going on to that of maximum value. In so far as any study has a unique or irreplaceable function in experience, in so far as it marks a characteristic enrichment of life, its worth is intrinsic or incomparable. Since education is not a means to living, but is identical with the operation of living a life which is fruitful and inherently significant, the only ultimate value which can be set up is just the process of living itself. And this is not an end to which studies and activities are subordinate means; it is the whole of which they are ingredients” (p. 248, emphasis mine).

Here I think we also have the seeds of Greene’s “wide-awakeness” essay.  The only ultimate value is just the process of living itself.  Life is an intrinsic value, and the more of it we get (in quality I’d assume) the more valuable it is.  What could be more valuable than being alive and wide awake?

Mabel teaching us something about wide-awakeness.

“The way to enable a student to apprehend the instrumental value of arithmetic is not to lecture him upon the benefit it will be to him in some remote and uncertain future, but to let him discover that success in something he is interested in doing depends upon ability to use number” (p. 249).

This sounds like a method of creating wide-awakeness in students and is an example of how we should hope to teach.  Of course the example holds for any subject.

 “Those responsible for planning and teaching the course of study should have grounds for thinking that the studies and topics included furnish both direct increments to the enriching of lives of the pupils and also materials which they can put to use in other concerns of direct interest” (p. 250).
 “We may say that the kind of experience to which the work of the schools should contribute is one marked by executive competency in the management of resources and obstacles encountered (efficiency); by sociability, or interest in the direct companionship of others; by aesthetic taste or capacity to appreciate artistic excellence in at least some of its classic forms; by trained intellectual method, or interest in some mode of scientific achievement; and by sensitiveness to the rights and claims of others -- conscientiousness. And while these considerations are not standards of value, they are useful criteria for survey, criticism, and better organization of existing methods and subject matter of instruction” (pp. 252-253).

The above citation could serve as a rubric; in my classes to the extent that I can, but in my parenting for sure, hopefully through example.

Some debatable observations on the last posting

Geography, History, and Science

The Significance of Geography and History

This is the time of year when I am attempting to organize my thoughts and notes about teaching into something tangible which I can experiment with in practice.  Throughout the school year I tend to incorporate new ideas about teaching, methods of approaching various subjects in music, but they are always tied to the continuum of what has already been throughout the year.  Before the school year starts I have the opportunity for real structural change, and through this section of D&E I’m thinking very much about how these statements about teaching geography, history, and science are analogous to teaching music. 

 “The task of education, once more, is to see to it that such activities are performed in such ways and under such conditions as render these conditions as perceptible as possible. To ‘learn geography’ is to gain in power to perceive the spatial, the natural, connections of an ordinary act; to ‘learn history’ is essentially to gain in power to recognize its human connections” (p. 217).

This statement, like many of the preceding ideas, suggests to me that music has evolved embedded in the human event.  It seems far more relevant in teaching say rhythmic notation to imagine or even recreate the problems which may have led musicians towards this system, rather than teaching the note names and values in isolation.

This is what Maxine Greene calls “problematizing”.   From the Preface to Landscapes of Learning:  “Learning also is a process of effecting new connections in experience, of thematizing, problematizng, and imposing diverse patterns on the inchoateness of things.”  The issue being to create conditions or an environment in which the problem is not presented,  but rather emerges in the consciousness of the learners.   This, it turns out, takes trial and error.  Because the way things are defined in their experience (no matter what the setting is) often is a long way from our more objective sense of what we want to teach and how we sense “the problem”.   So, with a group of learners....a lot depends on the quality of facilitation.  Do we necessarily have the relevant connections in experience?  Or can we help them forge their new connections into usefulness?  

"Nature is the medium of social occurrences. It furnishes original stimuli; it supplies obstacles and resources. Civilization is the progressive mastery of its varied energies. When this interdependence of the study of history, representing the human emphasis, with the study of geography, representing the natural, is ignored, history sinks to a listing of dates with an appended inventory of events…” (p. 219).



 “History deals with the past, but this past is the history of the present. An intelligent study of the discovery, explorations, colonization of America, of the pioneer movement westward, of immigration, etc., should be a study of the United States as it is to-day: of the country we now live in… It means equally that past events cannot be separated from the living present and retain meaning. The true starting point of history is always some present situation with its problems” (p. 222, emphasis mine).

In these passages one can’t pass lightly over Dewey’s emphasis on “knowledge” as a social construction. 

So I’m thinking structurally about creating situations with musical problems, then facilitating investigations into musical history (how have other composers solved this problem?) or performance (what techniques deal with this problem?)

Is it possible to set up and facilitate having experiences in which they define the problems?   And that from each problem they identify to then facilitate to consideration of a new and different problem?  The problems all being “theirs”.   Though a sequence like this one could move toward them having “ownership” of a problem that relates to the way musicians have traditionally dealt with something similar.

“Surely no better way could be devised of instilling a genuine sense of the part which mind has to play in life than a study of history which makes plain how the entire advance of humanity from savagery to civilization has been dependent upon intellectual discoveries and inventions…” (p. 225).

And so it is with music, the discoveries and inventions being literacy, instrumental groupings, tone qualities, form, and so on.

Although one wants to develop an appreciation of these categories and instrumentalities....aren’t they really adjunct and tangential to how they might learn in general and also more specifically, how they might learn these particular pathways?

“Pursued in this fashion, history would most naturally become of ethical value in teaching… The use of history for cultivating a socialized intelligence constitutes its moral significance… The assistance which may be given by history to a more intelligent sympathetic understanding of the social situations of the present in which individuals share is a permanent and constructive moral asset” (p. 225).

“It is the nature of an experience to have implications which go far beyond what is at first consciously noted in it. Bringing these connections or implications to consciousness enhances the meaning of the experience” (p. 225).

It’s always desirable to have them go beyond the box you’ve imagined or even the one they’ve created.  That’s a process that has to be “enabled” (they feel their own capacity for moving around within it) in a fairly unending fashion and then with the idea that at points in that process specific things can be done.   But I can’t help but think it’s critical to unsettle the notion that problems exist to be solved in a way that settling.  I’m cribbing Wittgenstein here....we want a method and it’s mostly descriptive and the users of it have to be descriptively conscious of it (meta-cognative).   When that flow is anchored (pleasurably in their experience) they can become self-activated and even curious.

Science in the Course of Study

“Science, in short, signifies a realization of the logical implications of any knowledge” (p. 227).
I think my analogies to teaching music stand here as well, that as historically significant discoveries and inventions have become common knowledge of musicians, they may be applied in ever greater ways, they have more implications.

I would not hesitate to enter into the originally encountered problematic as much as possible.   Take Mozart.... he accepted certain classical forms and the whole point I think of using Mozart is that what makes his music enduring and interesting is how he departed from the received forms.  To me that’s the creative point of departure.   So, one feels one has to teach the forms first.  But we don’t live in in a culture, at least of so called “classical music” that has a clear fix on forms.  We have a zillion of them we’ve inherited from the past however.  And it’s a bit overwhelming i think.  In this way the creative point of departure gets lost in learning the forms. 

But (observing very abstractly) it seems to me one might come to an understanding of the forms in exactly the opposite way they are generally taught.  The impulse to organize and rationally order (to give form) is basic human response to the “problem” of chaos and how it is perceived and felt and expressed.   So, form emerges naturally to person who’s been enabled to think about their own experience.  Yet....differently for different people.  Individuality.  

“To the non-expert, however, this perfected form is a stumbling block. Just because the material is stated with reference to the furtherance of knowledge as an end in itself, its connections with the material of everyday life are hidden” (p. 227).

There we go.  But awfully hard to do.  “Chemistry in Everyday Life”.  Turns out to be as bad or worse than chemistry taught in the most abstract and formal way.  Again, it’s how the problems are sensed, defined and worked with more than what they are.   The process want’s to be enabling and the process itself is a form of live and living experience.   Then the connections to “everyday life” in other spheres are fairly easy for people to realize for themselves.  Called “application”.   But any application of what is learned depends heavily upon the quality, or how, of the learning experience was first encountered.

“From the standpoint of the learner scientific form is an ideal to be achieved, not a starting point from which to set out” (p. 227).

“The pupils learn a ‘science’ instead of learning the scientific way of treating the familiar material of ordinary experience. The method of the advanced student dominates college teaching; the approach of the college is transferred into the high school, and so down the line, with such omissions as may make the subject easier” (p. 228).

Translated into music education the above statements suggests that the primary aim at the elementary level is not a high level of technical ability, but rather an attitude of thinking about things musically.  A more authentic aim might be the expression and communication of musical ideas, of musical sketches.

Yikes....that is positively beautifully put.  I must have missed this in my first quick read.  Would have saved me a lot of what I wrote above.   You can just start everything with what you wrote here. This is a great platform from which to plan.

“No one would have a knowledge of a machine who could enumerate all the materials entering into its structure, but only he who knew their uses and could tell why they are employed as they are. In like fashion one has a knowledge of mathematical conceptions only when he sees the problems in which they function and their specific utility in dealing with these problems. "Knowing" the definitions, rules, formulae, etc., is like knowing the names of parts of a machine without knowing what they do. In one case, as in the other, the meaning, or intellectual content, is what the element accomplishes in the system of which it is a member” (p. 231).

This is a recurrent theme for Dewey, and it makes me think that structurally the aims of my curriculum should foster the “three fairly typical stages in the growth… knowledge exists as the content of intelligent ability -- power to do… [is] deepened through communicated knowledge or information… [and finally is] worked over into rationally or logically organized material” (p. 192).  This is how Dewey answers the question “what is it to know?”  And is a guide for planning experiences and also I think for assessment.  Can the student do, communicate, and apply? Or something along those lines. 

Yes.  This suggests certain developmental sequences of activities.  Sidebar:  You might want to take a quick look at the essays on arts education by Maxine Greene in Landscapes of Learning.  I’m willing to bet after reading and writing what you have here you’ll read those essays in a different way.

“Experimental science means the possibility of using past experiences as the servant, not the master, of mind. It means that reason operates within experience, not beyond it, to give it an intelligent or reasonable quality. Science is experience becoming rational. The effect of science is thus to change men's idea of the nature and inherent possibilities of experience” (p. 233, emphasis mine).

An investigation here may be to recreate a particular sound or mood in an existing piece of music.

“For abstraction deliberately selects from the subject matter of former experiences that which is thought helpful in dealing with the new. It signifies conscious transfer of a meaning embedded in past experience for use in a new one. It is the very artery of intelligence, of the intentional rendering of one experience available for guidance of another” (p. 234).

Identifying a particular sound or mood from a piece would be like abstracting a tool which could be used in future compositions or analysis of other pieces.

“Aesthetic formulation reveals and enhances the meaning of experiences one already has; scientific formulation supplies one with tools for constructing new experiences with transformed meanings” (pp. 235-236).

I wonder about this.  The degree to which one might not want to move to quickly to “existing pieces” but to facilitate a fairly long engagement that moves in this direction through them identifying sound or moods that they create themselves.   Then at a certain point, one might introduce “an existing piece” that parallels what they’ve done....but it might be more “refined” or “elaborate” .  This perhaps shows them what can be done with what they’ve created?   Hard to do.  But not impossible I think if you have a sense of what the aims and conditions are for moving toward them.

Geography, History, and Science

The Significance of Geography and History

This is the time of year when I am attempting to organize my thoughts and notes about teaching into something tangible which I can experiment with in practice.  Throughout the school year I tend to incorporate new ideas about teaching, methods of approaching various subjects in music, but they are always tied to the continuum of what has already been throughout the year.  Before the school year starts I have the opportunity for real structural change, and through this section of D&E I’m thinking very much about how these statements about teaching geography, history, and science are analogous to teaching music. 

 “The task of education, once more, is to see to it that such activities are performed in such ways and under such conditions as render these conditions as perceptible as possible. To ‘learn geography’ is to gain in power to perceive the spatial, the natural, connections of an ordinary act; to ‘learn history’ is essentially to gain in power to recognize its human connections” (p. 217).

This statement, like many of the preceding ideas, suggests to me that music has evolved embedded in the human event.  It seems far more relevant in teaching say rhythmic notation to imagine or even recreate the problems which may have led musicians towards this system, rather than teaching the note names and values in isolation.

"Nature is the medium of social occurrences. It furnishes original stimuli; it supplies obstacles and resources. Civilization is the progressive mastery of its varied energies. When this interdependence of the study of history, representing the human emphasis, with the study of geography, representing the natural, is ignored, history sinks to a listing of dates with an appended inventory of events…” (p. 219).

 “History deals with the past, but this past is the history of the present. An intelligent study of the discovery, explorations, colonization of America, of the pioneer movement westward, of immigration, etc., should be a study of the United States as it is to-day: of the country we now live in… It means equally that past events cannot be separated from the living present and retain meaning. The true starting point of history is always some present situation with its problems” (p. 222, emphasis mine).

So I’m thinking structurally about creating situations with musical problems, then facilitating investigations into musical history (how have other composers solved this problem?) or performance (what techniques deal with this problem?)

“Surely no better way could be devised of instilling a genuine sense of the part which mind has to play in life than a study of history which makes plain how the entire advance of humanity from savagery to civilization has been dependent upon intellectual discoveries and inventions…” (p. 225).

And so it is with music, the discoveries and inventions being literacy, instrumental groupings, tone qualities, form, and so on.

“Pursued in this fashion, history would most naturally become of ethical value in teaching… The use of history for cultivating a socialized intelligence constitutes its moral significance… The assistance which may be given by history to a more intelligent sympathetic understanding of the social situations of the present in which individuals share is a permanent and constructive moral asset” (p. 225).

“It is the nature of an experience to have implications which go far beyond what is at first consciously noted in it. Bringing these connections or implications to consciousness enhances the meaning of the experience” (p. 225).

Science in the Course of Study

“Science, in short, signifies a realization of the logical implications of any knowledge” (p. 227).
I think my analogies to teaching music stand here as well, that as historically significant discoveries and inventions have become common knowledge of musicians, they may be applied in ever greater ways, they have more implications. 

“To the non-expert, however, this perfected form is a stumbling block. Just because the material is stated with reference to the furtherance of knowledge as an end in itself, its connections with the material of everyday life are hidden” (p. 227).

“From the standpoint of the learner scientific form is an ideal to be achieved, not a starting point from which to set out” (p. 227).

“The pupils learn a ‘science’ instead of learning the scientific way of treating the familiar material of ordinary experience. The method of the advanced student dominates college teaching; the approach of the college is transferred into the high school, and so down the line, with such omissions as may make the subject easier” (p. 228).

Translated into music education the above statements suggests that the primary aim at the elementary level is not a high level of technical ability, but rather an attitude of thinking about things musically.  A more authentic aim might be the expression and communication of musical ideas, of musical sketches.

“No one would have a knowledge of a machine who could enumerate all the materials entering into its structure, but only he who knew their uses and could tell why they are employed as they are. In like fashion one has a knowledge of mathematical conceptions only when he sees the problems in which they function and their specific utility in dealing with these problems. "Knowing" the definitions, rules, formulae, etc., is like knowing the names of parts of a machine without knowing what they do. In one case, as in the other, the meaning, or intellectual content, is what the element accomplishes in the system of which it is a member” (p. 231).

This is a recurrent theme for Dewey, and it makes me think that structurally the aims of my curriculum should foster the “three fairly typical stages in the growth… knowledge exists as the content of intelligent ability -- power to do… [is] deepened through communicated knowledge or information… [and finally is] worked over into rationally or logically organized material” (p. 192).  This is how Dewey answers the question “what is it to know?”  And is a guide for planning experiences and also I think for assessment.  Can the student do, communicate, and apply? Or something along those lines. 

“Experimental science means the possibility of using past experiences as the servant, not the master, of mind. It means that reason operates within experience, not beyond it, to give it an intelligent or reasonable quality. Science is experience becoming rational. The effect of science is thus to change men's idea of the nature and inherent possibilities of experience” (p. 233, emphasis mine).

An investigation here may be to recreate a particular sound or mood in an existing piece of music.

“For abstraction deliberately selects from the subject matter of former experiences that which is thought helpful in dealing with the new. It signifies conscious transfer of a meaning embedded in past experience for use in a new one. It is the very artery of intelligence, of the intentional rendering of one experience available for guidance of another” (p. 234).

Identifying a particular sound or mood from a piece would be like abstracting a tool which could be used in future compositions or analysis of other pieces.

“Aesthetic formulation reveals and enhances the meaning of experiences one already has; scientific formulation supplies one with tools for constructing new experiences with transformed meanings” (pp. 235-236).

Play and work

It was good for me to open the blog back up after quite a bit of time and to realize that the next chapter in D&E was Work and Play in the Curriculum.  The highlights from the chapter reminded me of some things I had been starting to forget...

“If the mass of mankind has usually found in its industrial occupations nothing but evils which had to be endured for the sake of maintaining existence, the fault is not in the occupations, but in the conditions under which they are carried on” (p. 208).

As I wrote in an email, I would like to approach posting in the blog in a more sustainable way, as a transition for completing D&E and moving into a discussion on the works we've gone through.   So here goes. 

 “It is the business of the school to set up an environment in which play and work shall be conducted with reference to facilitating desirable mental and moral growth. It is not enough just to introduce plays and games, hand work and manual exercises. Everything depends upon the way in which they are employed” (p. 204).

The house and barn as viewed from the east side of the field.

I’m considering the relatively new activities I’ve started as my personal school environment… house projects, the orchard ,gardening, brewing.  Synthesizing Dewey and other works through these experiences should help with mental growth, as I work to create meaning from them in the context of my environment (or a more nuanced meaning from my environment through these works.)  Making conscious, informed decisions after critically thinking on the social context constitutes, I believe, what Dewey means by moral growth.   The examples I gave of my personal school environment are there for their own sake (they are my personal interests) but they are carried out at my house, which is shared with Ashley and soon our first child.  This is the immediate and most important social context, where moral meaning lives. 

The orchard with young trees covered in deer netting and surrounded by a small moveable fence.

Young grape vines

Evidence of deer in the garden

 “The problem of the educator is to engage pupils in these activities in such ways that while manual skill and technical efficiency are gained and immediate satisfaction found in the work, together with preparation for later usefulness, these things shall be subordinated to education -- that is, to intellectual results and the forming of a socialized disposition” (p. 204).

Haying behind the house, seems to illustrate exactly the quote above.

“Moreover, opportunity for making mistakes is an incidental requirement. Not because mistakes are ever desirable, but because overzeal to select material and appliances which forbid a chance for mistakes to occur, restricts initiative, reduces judgment to a minimum, and compels the use of methods which are so remote from the complex situations of life that the power gained is of little availability. It is quite true that children tend to exaggerate their powers of execution and to select projects that are beyond them. But limitation of capacity is one of the things which has to be learned; like other things, it is learned through the experience of consequences… Meantime it is more important to keep alive a creative and constructive attitude than to secure an external perfection by engaging the pupil's action in too minute and too closely regulated pieces of work” (p. 205).

None of the whip and tongue grafts I attempted this spring have taken.  So clearly I made some mistakes, and perhaps have learned something of my own limited capacities.  This experience however has led me to research more, to prepare my own rootstock for next year and to make a more humble attempt at budding onto the rootstock already in the ground in the next few weeks.  Likely my second attempt at grafting will involve more nuanced attention to detail.

“The unity of the purpose, with the concentration upon details which it entails, confers simplicity upon the elements which have to be reckoned with in the course of action. It furnishes each with a single meaning according to its service in carrying on the whole enterprise. After one has gone through the process, the constituent qualities and relations are elements, each possessed with a definite meaning of its own. The false notion referred to takes the standpoint of the expert, the one for whom elements exist; isolates them from purposeful action, and presents them to beginners as the "simple" things” (p. 207).

The most recent new endeavor I’ve gotten myself into is the brewing of beer.  The details of each step of the brewing process are relatively simple, and work together in unity for the purpose of creating something of quality.  As I prepared to brew my first batch, I read a lot about the process and the equipment involved, planned, rechecked, and then finally gave it a try.  Despite have conceptual knowledge, it was not until after I had gone through the process that the individual, isolated elements of the process seemed to have simple relationships.  I think this parallels much of the way subjects are taught in school, only many of them don’t follow with an experience.  I believe I have been taught to take this approach: research and study the concepts first.  It has some advantages, giving me a plan to start with, but I feel that I will learn more as I continue to brew, although conceptually I may not actually add all that much.  The learning I think will be a nuanced understanding of the relationships between the elements in the process of brewing.  This conversation I think leads into Dewey’s great example…

“Gardening, for example, need not be taught either for the sake of preparing future gardeners, or as an agreeable way of passing time… There is nothing in the elementary study of botany which cannot be introduced in a vital way in connection with caring for the growth of seeds. Instead of the subject matter belonging to a peculiar study called botany, it will then belong to life, and will find, moreover, its natural correlations with the facts of soil, animal life, and human relations. As students grow mature, they will perceive problems of interest which may be pursued for the sake of discovery, independent of the original direct interest in gardening -- problems connected with the germination and nutrition of plants, the reproduction of fruits, etc., thus making a transition to deliberate intellectual investigations” (p. 208).

I think Dewey is discussing method here more than subject.  Brewing beer could serve as subject matter/method for microbiology, chemistry, consumption and digestion (both in yeasts and humans... probably not in elementary school) as well as waste, pollution, and the environment.  Approaching a subject such as “music” as something to be taught seems to isolate and remove the subject from life, simply by approaching it as a conceptual subject.  That says nothing of “math” or “chemistry.”  So taking these analogies into my classroom I think my subject matter/method should be more along the lines of activities which ideally inspire students to grow in the field of music in order to be done well.  Didn’t Dewey write near the end of D&E that he was advocating not for a philosophy of education, but of experience (or something like that?)  Experience is active, beginning with activity. 


 “When fairly remote results of a definite character are foreseen and enlist persistent effort for their accomplishment, play passes into work. Like play, it signifies purposeful activity and differs not in that activity is subordinated to an external result, but in the fact that a longer course of activity is occasioned by the idea of a result” (p. 212).

The fairly long process of creating what will become the baby’s.  Here the ceiling which was water stained and moldy has just been taken down, along with the loose insulation which was above it.

“As already mentioned, the absence of economic pressure in schools supplies an opportunity for reproducing industrial situations of mature life under conditions where the occupation can be carried on for its own sake… It is important not to confuse the psychological distinction between play and work with the economic distinction” (pp. 212-213). 

subject matter

Subject matter consists of the facts observed, recalled, read, and talked about, and the ideas suggested, in course of a development of a situation having a purpose.

I think that putting up a tent with other people would fit Dewey's definition perfectly.

Can't really add much to your citations and observations since they seem to truly grasp the import of what Dewey observed (then) and also the relevance to things as they are generally done now.

Thinking about these things and trying them out (in the classroom etc as you describe) is exactly what Dewey had in mind.   He did not intend his thoughts and observations to be used like recipes in a cookbook.  Rather, it's the ideas and principles he articulates that need to be experimentally put into current practice.  They need to be recreated or reconstructed into our own ways of doing and thinking.

I think most of what Dewey writes about in these core chapters (11-14) can be encountered in differently language in Maxine Greene.   Her emphasis on sensing and celebrating the problematic in learning seems to align very much with what Dewey gets at in this chapter.   The "course of development of a situation having a purpose" in a learning environment should be focused on students solving problems that arise from within their experience of that situation.   In this respect the teacher is a learner with the students (previous chapter).   If it's a real situation with students actually identifying and solving problems....then the teacher is learning how a particular "subject matter" an be enacted/embodied....brought to life (even in a classroom).

The teaching of music in so many respects works from traditions about "how to learn".   So getting outside those time-honored paradigms is something that requires great effort for most of us.   What I mean...is thinking differently about how people might learn through their developing judgment about their own experience.   This is essentially a qualitative affair.   But so often it's taught by what seems can inflexible standard of "how it should be"....which tends to replace the students need to judge and to learn how to do that.

The Nature of Subject Matter

“The educator's part in the enterprise of education is to furnish the environment which stimulates responses and directs the learner's course. In last analysis, all that the educator can do is modify stimuli so that response will as surely as is possible result in the formation of desirable intellectual and emotional dispositions… The other point is the necessity of a social environment to give meaning to habits formed. In what we have termed informal education, subject matter is carried directly in the matrix of social intercourse. It is what the persons with whom an individual associates do and say. This fact gives a clew to the understanding of the subject matter of formal or deliberate instruction” (p. 188).

“As we have previously noted, probably the chief motive for consciously dwelling upon the group life, extracting the meanings which are regarded as most important and systematizing them in a coherent arrangement, is just the need of instructing the young so as to perpetuate group life. Once started on this road of selection, formulation, and organization, no definite limit exists. The invention of writing and of printing gives the operation an immense impetus. Finally, the bonds which connect the subject matter of school study with the habits and ideals of the social group are disguised and covered up. The ties are so loosened that it often appears as if there were none; as if subject matter existed simply as knowledge on its own independent behoof, and as if study were the mere act of mastering it for its own sake, irrespective of any social values. Since it is highly important for practical reasons to counter-act this tendency (See ante, p. 8) the chief purposes of our theoretical discussion are to make clear the connection which is so readily lost from sight, and to show in some detail the social content and function of the chief constituents of the course of study” (p. 189).

“The material of school studies translates into concrete and detailed terms the meanings of current social life which it is desirable to transmit” (pp. 189-190).

Early in the text Dewey asserts that “we never educate directly, but indirectly by means of the environment” (p. 23) and when he revisits that theme tied deeply to the social environment I think we see the potential that schools and public education can have.  If the only things we wished to pass on to the young so that they could reestablish our society were skills in isolation, it would be far easier and more efficient to employ computerized programs for students to work through.  But we don’t, we want to pass on a degree of civility of how people act with one another and react with one another.  But I think that often this social aim is overlooked, forgotten, or pushed aside as specific content and the dissemination of information takes priority.  In cases where teachers are not encouraged to think, but rather to follow curricula and to cover material (as I believe is the norm in many public schools) we are perhaps doing an even worse service than employing computerized programs; we are teaching obedience without questions, often in the face of coercion, though the way that our teachers are made to teach. 


 “Organized subject matter… does not represent perfection or infallible wisdom; but it is the best at command to further new experiences which may, in some respects at least, surpass the achievements embodied in existing knowledge and works of art” (p. 190).

“From the standpoint of the educator, in other words, the various studies represent working resources, available capital” (p. 190).

I don’t think that there will ever be “the” answer to what students need to learn, something like a list of skills which if learned all students will grow up to create a perfect society.  The lists of “what every kindergarten student should know” are impossible.  But I do think that it is the teacher’s responsibility to use subject matter with critical judgment, Dewey says as “working resources,” so that our young may surpass our achievements.  As resources teachers use subject matter to give students tools to solve problems.  I would add to Dewey’s list that we want our young to surpass our achievements in social aims as well: conflict resolution, international diplomacy, and our ability to respect differences and care for other human beings.


“Failure to bear in mind the difference in subject matter from the respective standpoints of teacher and student is responsible for most of the mistakes made in the use of texts and other expressions of preexistent knowledge” (p. 190).

“When engaged in the direct act of teaching, the instructor needs to have subject matter at his fingers' ends; his attention should be upon the attitude and response of the pupil” (pp. 190-191).

“The child's home is, for example, the organizing center of his geographical knowledge… But the geography of the geographer, of the one who has already developed the implications of these smaller experiences, is organized on the basis of the relationship which the various facts bear to one another… To the one who is learned, subject matter is extensive, accurately defined, and logically interrelated. To the one who is learning, it is fluid, partial, and connected through his personal occupations” (p. 191).

These remind me again of an earlier discussion we had regarding the value of performances in music education.  I was thinking as I prepared with students for a third grade recorder concert last week primarily of the attitude and response of the students.  There were instances when it would have been easy to correct technical mistakes through some kind of coercive measure, and I actually had to discuss with a paraprofessional about the reasons for doing the concert (she was trying to help by yelling at students who were making mistakes.)  I reminded them that we were all learning, that performing as we were was a demonstration of what we have been learning, and that honest mistakes were not something to be ashamed of at all.  For the evening performance we had the highest turn out of students at any concert I have put together.  I think that the overall aim, an appreciation of music and a positive ensemble experience, was achieved.  And at times it actually sounded kind of “good.”

“It is possible, without doing violence to the facts, to mark off three fairly typical stages in the growth of subject matter in the experience of the learner. In its first estate, knowledge exists as the content of intelligent ability -- power to do. This kind of subject matter, or known material, is expressed in familiarity or acquaintance with things. Then this material gradually is surcharged and deepened through communicated knowledge or information. Finally, it is enlarged and worked over into rationally or logically organized material -- that of the one who, relatively speaking, is expert in the subject” (p. 192).

This citation has been very influential for me.  I think the first kind of knowledge comes from raw, trial and error experiences.  I believe Dewey suggests these should be as “unschoolastic” as possible.  So I tried a short experiment with my younger students to move through these three stages, although much faster than what Dewey suggests, and our final product was certainly not expertise.  But I had students start by making noise with instruments, and we described what we heard.  They all of course had the power to do many different sounds, so we identified them with musical vocabulary (piano/forte for example) and we discussed how to write these.  This second step seems to be were many school experiences start and end.  To use this material in logic or with reason, each class wrote their own short piece.  At the next lesson we started with what they wrote, discussed what it meant (discussed how it would sound) and then performed it.  We made some revisions and then performed it again.  I do think it would be possible and very meaningful to approach an entire curriculum in this way.

“When education, under the influence of a scholastic conception of knowledge which ignores everything but scientifically formulated facts and truths, fails to recognize that primary or initial subject matter always exists as matter of an active doing, involving the use of the body and the handling of material, the subject matter of instruction is isolated from the needs and purposes of the learner, and so becomes just a something to be memorized and reproduced upon demand. Recognition of the natural course of development, on the contrary, always sets out with situations which involve learning by doing” (p. 192).

“To have good sense or judgment is to know the conduct a situation calls for; discernment is not making distinctions for the sake of making them, an exercise reprobated as hair splitting, but is insight into an affair with reference to acting. Wisdom has never lost its association with the proper direction of life. Only in education, never in the life of farmer, sailor, merchant, physician, or laboratory experimenter, does knowledge mean primarily a store of information aloof from doing” (p. 193).

That statement, only in education does knowledge mean a store of information aloof from doing, I think is central to the problems with education today.  When the focus is on the memorization of information, what was Dewey’s second way of knowing something, we lose a sense of judgment.  Judgment is I think only possible with reasoning and logic, only when information can be used as a tool towards some other end, rather than as an end for itself.  We don’t allow students many opportunities for making judgments, and as teachers we don’t often model our judgment process.  And I think sound judgment, or critical thinking, is tied deeply to doing things.  If we were to say that we think through language that would be correct, only that by through I mean from experience to logic, not through as in that language is the only medium for thinking. 


“Information is the name usually given to this kind of subject matter. The place of communication in personal doing supplies us with a criterion for estimating the value of informational material in school. Does it grow naturally out of some question with which the student is concerned? Does it fit into his more direct acquaintance so as to increase its efficacy and deepen its meaning? If it meets these two requirements, it is educative” (p. 194).

“The imposing stupendous bulk of this material has unconsciously influenced men's notions of the nature of knowledge itself… The record of knowledge, independent of its place as an outcome of inquiry and a resource in further inquiry, is taken to be knowledge” (p. 195).

“What is known, in a given case, is what is sure, certain, settled, disposed of; that which we think with rather than that which we think about” (p. 196).

“As a part of this intercommunication one learns much from others. They tell of their experiences and of the experiences which, in turn, have been told them. In so far as one is interested or concerned in these communications, their matter becomes a part of one's own experience” (pp. 193-194).

“In so far as we are partners in common undertakings, the things which others communicate to us as the consequences of their particular share in the enterprise blend at once into the experience resulting from our own special doings” (p. 194).

 “Ignorance gives way to opinionated and current error, -- a greater foe to learning than ignorance itself. A Socrates is thus led to declare that consciousness of ignorance is the beginning of effective love of wisdom, and a Descartes to say that science is born of doubting” (p. 197).

I think that in our society today opinionated and current error are spread widely, through news commentary or analysis, and is often presented as knowledge or information.  Our current society makes it even more pressing that we practice thinking critically and making judgments.  We have to think about some of our information before we can think with our information towards hypothesizing and problem solving.


“Without initiation into the scientific spirit one is not in possession of the best tools which humanity has so far devised for effectively directed reflection… For he does not become acquainted with the traits that mark off opinion and assent from authorized conviction. On the other hand, the fact that science marks the perfecting of knowing in highly specialized conditions of technique renders its results, taken by themselves, remote from ordinary experience -- a quality of aloofness that is popularly designated by the term abstract” (pp. 197-198).

“The knowledge of a farmer is systematized in the degree in which he is competent. It is organized on the basis of relation of means to ends -- practically organized” (p. 198).

If I understand this correctly, the thoughtful farmer takes something of a scientific approach (hypothesis, experimentation, conclusions) to the profession and is able to conclusions to be practical rather than abstract.  This happens because farmers are out farming, not because they are discussing text books or other resources on farming.  Of course, when the farmer reaches a problem when she doesn’t have knowledge of, these kinds of resources would be helpful in suggesting hypothesis to test.


“With the wide range of possible material to select from, it is important that education (especially in all its phases short of the most specialized) should use a criterion of social worth” (p. 199).

“The scheme of a curriculum must take account of the adaptation of studies to the needs of the existing community life; it must select with the intention of improving the life we live in common so that the future shall be better than the past” (p. 199).

“A curriculum which acknowledges the social responsibilities of education must present situations where problems are relevant to the problems of living together, and where observation and information are calculated to develop social insight and interest” (p. 200).

These final citations suggest to me a need for schools to get outside of the schoolyard and into the community, to employ students in identifying problems and working to solve them.  This seems like such a far cry from where we are today.  At best students are in the community as interns gaining work experience. 

“The child of three who discovers what can be done with blocks... is really a discoverer, even though everybody else in the world knows it” (p. 166).