Woe. The mistress of irony has laid her cruel hands upon me.
This Monday I could not attend my usual working time in the writing production
lab, because I was driving down to Warwick to take the GRE exam. Quietly I
laughed to myself as I struggled to write that paragraph in cursive, just as I
had done four years ago for the SAT. But alas I survived to soldier on and pick
the brain of John Dewey once more. This week I am looking at other selections
from the same chapter of Democracy and Education that I had quoted last week.
What stands out concerning this chapter, namely Education as a Social Function is that
most of the discussion involves a sort of inclusive education within a specific
society. This delves deep into Dewey’s educational theory without bringing up
any concerns of ethnocentric behavior. In general, the discussion is of the
nature and meaning of environment, the social environment, the social medium as
educative, and the school as a special environment.
[A] society transforms
uninitiated and seemingly alien beings into robust trustees of its own
resources and ideals. (Dewey 15)
The words
“environment” and “medium” denote […] the specific continuity of the surroundings with his own active
tendencies. (Dewey 15)
Water is the
environment of a fish because it is necessary to the fish’s activities – to its
life. (Dewey 16)
What I find that connects these quotes is a constant
emphasis on the role of society in the education of the immature. Dewey goes
into the school as a sort of “society” later on, but since we are more
concerned with the topic of global citizenship, let us take this in a broader
sense. Let us treat a nation as if it were a sort of “school” and we can see
that as a school aims to create a sort of ideal environment of passion in learning,
the nation may equally take this responsibility as a whole. Arguably, the sort
of open-mindedness that we wish to obtain must start within the schooling
system, but cannot stop there. True adoption of a concept spreads wild through
society as a whole.
Repeatedly made evident in this piece are the concepts of belief and continuity - surely a theme in Dewey’s earlier philosophy. Dewey is
emphasizing the role of a person’s environment in their education. A sort of
authentic and inauthentic education is defined, but Dewey names these modes training and education, respectively. Training is the sort of fostering of habit
gained through a mode that would make Kant roll in his grave. It treats people
as a means and not an ends, sort of like animals, educating them by
conditioning them to certain modes of thought rather than fostering any sort of
passion or mindfulness.
I wonder immediately what sort of passion or mindfulness we
retain in the contemporary day and age. Has our education system trained us, or
truly educated us? Amidst my schooling I have indeed found a sort of passion
for knowledge, but I often wonder if this is because I have taken such a
specific path (writing/rhetoric/philosophy). I talk to my friends drowning in
the midst of the world of STEM and see that their education can be dimmed to a
sort of regurgitation of information. Mindlessly they memorize, stacking flash
cards upon flash cards, taking their tests, repeating this over and over. And
conclusively they experience a sort of revolt; a sort of “thank God that is
over” attitude. They don’t seem to have learned anything. I turn back to my own
experiences and find that while I often experience quite a bit of stress as my
friends do, there is no revolt. There is no innate feeling of pointlessness. I
conclusively determine that I have learned, and my passion grows. Now in many cases – too many cases – the
activity of the immature human being is simply played upon to secure habits
which are useful. He is trained like an animal rather than educated like a
human being. (Dewey 18) I see this quote and cannot help but see the
contrast of my education and the education of my friends. I feel as though I am
learning, and they are simply creating useful habits.
Four years and I’ve been kindled into a fire. My friend John
was kindled into a Computer Scientist.
Dewey, John. (1916) Democracy
and Education. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education. 2. Education as
a Social Function. The Middle Works
of John Dewey, (1899-1924). Vol 9. Pg 15-28
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