Article 1, I believe Education is ...
the individual is a social being, society is an organity unity of individuals. Education must begin with individual capacities, interests and habits. The purpose of education is to improve society.
Article 2. What the school is...
a social institution, involved in a social process, a process of living today and not preparation for living in the future. Schools must represent real life, and grow out of family life. It must encourage children to participate in the process. School should be about personal growth. Examinations are only of use if they determine the potential role the child can play in community life.
Article 3. The curriculum. The child's own social experiences need to be the start of the curriculum. Subjects need to begin with ways in which they are experienced in everyday life.
Article 4. Methods. Only activity can deliver the various aspects of education and learning without dullness or sentimental emotionalism. For activities, interests can be observed.
Article 5. The School and Social Progress. Education needs to be a mechanism to achieve social progress. It should merge arts with sciences. The teachers need to recognise the dignity of their calling as helping to form a better society.
It will be interesting to map this against current educational provision.
Sample quotations from Experience & Education (1938), a lecture series which offers a mature synthesis of his ideas on education:
"basing education on personal experience may mean more multiplied and more intimate contacts between the mature and immature than ever existed in the traditional school, and consequently more, rather than less, guidance by others." [p.21]
"How shall the young become acquainted with the past in such a way that the acquaintance is a potent agent in the appreciation of the living present?" [p.23]
"Experience and education cannot be directly equated to each other. For some experiences are mis-educative. Any experience is mis-educative that has the effect of arresting or distorting further experience. An experience may be such as to engender callousness; it may produce a lack of sensitivity and of responsiveness...
It is not enough to insist on the necessity of experience, nor even of activity within experience. Everything depends on the quality of the experience to be had... [It is the task of the educator] to select the kind of present experiences that live fruitfully and creatively in subsequent experiences." [pp.27-8]
"Every experience is a moving force. Its value can be judged only on the ground of what it moves towards and into" [p.38]
"When education is based upon experience and educative experience is seen as a social process, the situation changes radically. The teacher loses the position of external boss or dictator but takes on that of leader of group activities." [p.59].
1 comment:
I previously taught at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools:
www.ucls.uchicago.edu
which was founded by John Dewey.
My induction day began with a Power Point slide of John Dewey's bust. I really wasn't sure if it was meant to be funny or devotional. Still not sure.
The Lab Schools have gained much from Dewey. Children are still encouraged to learn by exploration, and curiosity, intellectual freedom and independence are all prized. However, I think, as any modern, prestigious school, it has struggled with its roots as well. How can Dewey's ethos be maintained when parents insist their child needs to learn X, Y and Z in order to pass a standardised test to get into a good university? Perhaps it can, but it is a struggle, not just philosophically, but in day to day workings and PR.
However, it is a school I dearly love and which is doing an excellent service to its children and community. Stephen, I would appreciate it if you would take down my previous email to you, as I didn't intend for it to be made public.
Thank you.
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