The Democratic Conception in Education

“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” (p. 87).

Ryan Brooks and Michael Korak ice climbing at Cathedral Ledge, North Conway, NH.

I agree with your suggestion that the above quote is not very optimistic given that...

“Society is one word, but many things” (p. 87).

Some of those things we wish to have continued in future societies, some are hold outs from older modes of thought which we would do better to forget, some are lude and insensitive, and then agreeing to what is which is a different challenge all of its own.

“But when we look at the facts which the term denotes instead of confining our attention to its intrinsic connotation, we find not unity, but a plurality of societies, good and bad” (p. 88).

“Any education given by a group tends to socialize its members, but the quality and value of the socialization depends upon the habits and aims of the group” (p. 88).

“The problem is to extract the desirable traits of forms of community life which actually exist, and employ them to criticize undesirable features and suggest improvement” (pp. 88-89).

Dewey gives us criteria for identifying the goods in a democratic state, so that identifying which traits of community life are desirable to share in education:

“How numerous and varied are the interests which are consciously shared? How full and free is the interplay with other forms of association?” (p. 89).

This first question makes me think of qualifiers for groups, hazing, pressures of conformity and such.  The second question makes me think of criminal groups or even groups which have a self sense of superiority (like the high school football team of my youth.)  Of course thinking through educational practices I think of the segregation of various subjects into individual, unrelated blocks of time, such as math, music, reading, et. cet.

“In order to have a large number of values in common, all the members of the group must have an equable opportunity to receive and to take from others” (p. 90).

“Diversity of stimulation means novelty, and novelty means challenge to thought” (p. 90).

“The isolation and exclusiveness of a gang or clique brings its antisocial spirit into relief. But this same spirit is found wherever one group has interests "of its own" which shut it out from full interaction with other groups, so that its prevailing purpose is the protection of what it has got, instead of reorganization and progress through wider relationships… schools when separated from the interest of home and community…” (p. 91).

“It is a commonplace that an alert and expanding mental life depends upon an enlarging range of contact with the physical environment. But the principle applies even more significantly to the field where we are apt to ignore it -- the sphere of social contacts” (p. 92).

The above quote reminds me of what we are doing now, using Dewey's text as something we come into contact with, and I think we're learning from it through out discussions.  But I agree with Dewey's suggestion that we are apt to ignoring the benefits of social interactions in our schools.  I was discussing with my student teacher, Mark, about how to structure first grade lessons to allow for student to student discussions, and was using the discussion we were having at that moment as a model for learning through sharing and building off of ideas.  I think the risk many teachers feel is that students won't be "on task" and there is a paradigm in classrooms that a talking class is a problem.  Perhaps these are old ideas which we would do well to forget.

“The two elements in our criterion [the questions above] both point to democracy. The first signifies not only more numerous and more varied points of shared common interest, but greater reliance upon the recognition of mutual interests as a factor in social control. The second means not only freer interaction between social groups ( once isolated so far as intention could keep up a separation ) but change in social habit -- its continuous readjustment through meeting the new situations produced by varied intercourse. And these two traits are precisely what characterize the democratically constituted society.

Upon the educational side, we note first that the realization of a form of social life in which interests are mutually interpenetrating, and where progress, or readjustment, is an important consideration, makes a democratic community more interested than other communities have cause to be in deliberate and systematic education” (pp. 92-93).

“A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience. The extension in space of the number of individuals who participate in an interest so that each has to refer his own action to that of others, and to consider the action of others to give point and direction to his own, is equivalent to the breaking down of those barriers of class, race, and national territory which kept men from perceiving the full import of their activity” (p. 93).

“A society which is mobile, which is full of channels for the distribution of a change occurring anywhere, must see to it that its members are educated to personal initiative and adaptability” (pp. 93-94).

“We cannot better Plato's conviction that an individual is happy and society well organized when each individual engages in those activities for which he has a natural equipment, nor his conviction that it is the primary office of education to discover this equipment to its possessor and train him for its effective use. But progress in knowledge has made us aware of the superficiality of Plato's lumping of individuals and their original powers into a few sharply marked-off classes…” (p. 96).

“The individual in his isolation is nothing; only in and through an absorption of the aims and meaning of organized institutions does he attain true personality” (p. 101).

The above quote makes me think of Neitsche's Zarathrusta, alone at the mountain top for ten years in order to fully actualize.  I don't know much about Neitsche but I think he stands almost in complete contrast to Dewey.

“Even the subsidy by rulers of privately conducted schools must be carefully safeguarded. For the rulers' interest in the welfare of their own nation instead of in what is best for humanity” (p. 102).

“All this reinforces the statement which opens this chapter: The conception of education as a social process and function has no definite meaning until we define the kind of society we have in mind” (p. 103).

“Is it possible for an educational system to be conducted by a national state and yet the full social ends of the educative process not be restricted, constrained, and corrupted? Internally, the question has to face the tendencies, due to present economic conditions, which split society into classes some of which are made merely tools for the higher culture of others. Externally, the question is concerned with the reconciliation of national loyalty, of patriotism, with superior devotion to the things which unite men in common ends, irrespective of national political boundaries… is not enough to see to it that education is not actively used as an instrument to make easier the exploitation of one class by another. School facilities must be secured of such amplitude and efficiency as will in fact and not simply in name discount the effects of economic inequalities, and secure to all the wards of the nation equality of equipment for their future careers. Accomplishment of this end demands not only adequate administrative provision of school facilities, and such supplementation of family resources as will enable youth to take advantage of them, but also such modification of traditional ideals of culture, traditional subjects of study and traditional methods of teaching and discipline as will retain all the youth under educational influences until they are equipped to be masters of their own economic and social careers” (p. 104).

“This conclusion is bound up with the very idea of education as a freeing of individual capacity in a progressive growth directed to social aims. Otherwise a democratic criterion of education can only be inconsistently applied” (p. 105).

This chapter has a lot in it to inspire, but the more I think about Dewey's philosophy it seems that at the center he feels that individuals self actualize because and through their interactions with others.  This seems to me to be a model for education: where two people explore the possibilities of a question or a problem.  When these questions and problems have in mind a better future they have social/societal value, and when they are freeing capacity for furthar learning they have instrinsic value.