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.