leaves of rattlesnake plantain orchid (Goodyera pubescents)
May 8, 2011
The Preface to Democracy and Education:
The word "embody" is significant I think. What does it mean to "embody" an "idea"? It involves detecting and stating. Then applying the results to "the problems of the enterprise of education". The word "embody" I believe is intended to connect the theory part of the statement with the practice/application part. For Dewey they are connected....The following pages embody an endeavor to detect and state the ideas implied in a democratic society and to apply these ideas to the problems of the enterprise of education.
What this embodied education is, is clearly distinguished from "public education" which Dewey believes to be out of sync with democratic ideas. Public education has carried forward ways of knowing and moral development that actually "hamper" the realization of democracy. Specifically: An older theory that "knowing" goes on in the head can be contrasted to a more embodied notion of "knowing" in which thinking and acting are organically connected.
The distinction between public education and education in the broader sense is blurred in the last sentence. But I think it's reasonable to infer that in Dewey's view there's an organic (embodied) connection between the two. Public education is encompassed within the larger realized ideals of democratic society.The discussion includes an indication of the constructive aims and methods of public education as seen from this point of view, and a critical estimate of the theories of knowing and moral development which were formulated in earlier social conditions, but which still operate, in societies nominally democratic, to hamper the adequate realization of the democratic ideal.
The other theme in this sentence is "change". Three kinds are implicated with the "growth of democracy"As will appear from the book itself, the philosophy stated in this book connects the growth of democracy with the development of the experimental method in the sciences, evolutionary ideas in the biological sciences, and the industrial reorganization, and is concerned to point out the changes in subject matter and method of education indicated by these developments.
- development of the experimental method in the science
- evolutionary ideas in the biological sciences
- the industrial reorganization
These three items all involved change. And shortly thereafter in the opening of Chapter 1 Dewey evokes change/adaptation as a biological mode characteristic of organisms and environments. It is at this level that change/adaptation sustains "life". And for Dewey this sets up a connection between change/adaptation and education. Education is life. Education is an experimental process of intelligent change/adaptation.
This then is the critical framework within which considerations about public education/schooling are to be made.
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Chapter 1 starts with definitions and analogies that are intended to condition reading the rest of the book.
The word "school" is used 8 times in Chapter 1. Almost every use of the word is critical and designed to compare it too the broader life-experience notion that Dewey has advanced.
After this, throughout the book, there are points where readers have become confused about Dewey's focus. But the distinction developed at the onset is the one that's important. By the time you get to Chapter 7 (the social conception of a democratic society) iT should be clear that the issue is as he puts it on p. 87:
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Chapter 1 starts with definitions and analogies that are intended to condition reading the rest of the book.
The word "school" is used 8 times in Chapter 1. Almost every use of the word is critical and designed to compare it too the broader life-experience notion that Dewey has advanced.
After this, throughout the book, there are points where readers have become confused about Dewey's focus. But the distinction developed at the onset is the one that's important. By the time you get to Chapter 7 (the social conception of a democratic society) iT should be clear that the issue is as he puts it on p. 87:
To say that education is a social function, securing direction and development in the immature through their participation in the life of the group to which they belong, is to say in effect that education will vary with the quality of life which prevails in a group.\This is not exactly optimistic to my reading. Rather, I think you can read it as a limitation on formal schooling as it is connected to the larger social group or culture. The variability of locally controlled public education systems also can be viewed as an affirmation of what Dewey observes here.
I like thinking about the word "change" in education. It certainly seems like the ability to change, or adaptibility, would be a pretty decent rubric through which to criticize institutionalized educational systems. I don't think many of them would do too well, though it is clear that the ability to change is necessary for continued survival.
ReplyDeleteI think it may be chapter 6, Education as Conservative and Progressive, where Dewey writes a bit about teaching the fear of what is unknown (change) through eliminating it in educational experiences.
“Since conformity is the aim, what is distinctively individual in a young person is brushed aside, or regarded as a source of mischief or anarchy. Conformity is made equivalent to uniformity. Consequently, there are induced lack of interest in the novel, aversion to progress, and dread of the uncertain and the unknown” (pp. 55-56) (chapter 3)
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly it. And as you write in the first comment....this is the problem writ large in many institutionalized educational settings. When this problem doesn't exist in a school or school system....it's because it's because this issue has consciously been addressed. It takes a culture to change a culture. And the culture that's often required then is counter-culture.
ReplyDeleteThis theme is also pursued in the Dewey's emphasis on the cultivate of individuality.