Dewey Reflections

Friday's Class left me with some questions concerning Dewey's philosophy on education. His quote "I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living" is a powerful statement, that could be taken in several directions in terms of its meaning and application. Here's my thoughts on the statement. I think Dewey believes that the students growth at the present is more important than trying to have him/her grow into something in the future. A college professor once said in class that if he could add anything to a college curriculum the course would be playing 101. He wanted to set aside a period of time for college students to enjoy life, perhaps the way a child would. He felt far too many college students were living for tomorrow instead of today. I agree that in both life and in school that you should enjoy life to the fullest. In an educational setting I learned several subjects that are of no use to me today. While I would argue that there is inherent value to being educated in the core subjects, many of them more directly prepare a student for certain professions. Did I really need to take Calculus 2 in high school to become the history teacher I am becoming today, probably not, but I was told to take it in high school because I would be ahead in math/science when I arrived in college. I took Calculus 2 instead of taking a Chinese history class which I probably would have enjoyed more and would be of more use today. I think in order for education to be a process of living, a student needs to discover what their interests are rather than have interests forced upon them.

In terms of the statement and technology I think part of teaching requires using the resources available today. If most kids are using Google and Wikipedia, they should be facilitated by the teacher as a used resource. I think of a resource/technology that I learned to use in the 2nd grade that is irrelevant to me today: cursive. I spent 2nd through 5th grade learning cursive, my elementary teachers did not know that I would end up doing all of my writing on the computer. Do I feel like I wasted all of that time learning essentially a skill not used anymore?No, for one I still can write in cursive (even though I don't), it also helped my regular hand handwriting. Lastly, there was no way my teachers could have known what the future would hold. Thus we can only use the technology of the present and learn to use them even though they may become obsolete. We cannot know what will happen, what aspects of education will become unnecessary, why should teaching be for "future living" when the future is unknown. We might as well use what we have in the present.

The last thing that left me thinking was about Dewey's idea that democracy should be taught in the classroom and how to do so. I will probably teach civics/government one day, I can teach the students about different forms of government, tell them which one I feel better and even persuade them that political participation is essential form of expressing citizenship. Yet is teaching citizenship and democracy I have a point of view that could be radically different than one of my students. I have never lived in another country with a different form of government. Also I have never immigrated to another country. Citizenship and democracy have a particular meaning to me but their definitions could be quite different for someone else (like my students). Thus how do I actually teach democracy? Personally I feel democracy and government are evolving experiments and the jury is still out on how it will end up. So what I can teach is that students no matter should strive for more and challenge the status quo, as democracy is not perfect. Maybe I can ask that their definition citizenship can include their responsibility of making the world a better place.

Sorry for the long post, I did not realize how many thoughts I had lingering from Jeff's class. Anyway in terms of Kristin's class, I must admit I got distracted when we looked at the giraffe page, did you know that giraffes are one of the strangest looking animals. I guess I didn't need wikipedia to tell me that though. Also John Dewey is now my second favorite Dewey, right after Duey from Ducktales.