Dewey’s Pedagogic Creed

Dewey, John.  (1897/2009).  My pedagogic creed.  Pages 34-41 in Flinders, David J. and Thornton, Steven J., eds.  The curriculum studies reader.  3rd ed.  New York, New York:  Routledge; Taylor & Francis Group.  Also online with many errors at http://www.rjgeib.com/biography/credo/dewey.html

Article I.  What education is

Dewey starts with psychology and the child.  He stresses that the child must be involved in his own education.  The teacher must understand what the child is doing, how he/she is learning.   The child is not a passive recipient.  In addition, the end result of education is social service.

Article II.  What the school is

“I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living.”  (p. 36)

School is a social process, according to Dewey, which arises out of the home and continues the lessons of home life in a simplified fashion.  School is a community and should reproduce community life.  The teacher as a member of the school community is not simply an authority figure but is preparing the child for his/her future community life outside of school.  Grading and discipline should not flow from the teacher but reflect the process of preparation of the child for service.

Article III.  The subject matter of education

“I believe accordingly that the primary basis of education is in the child’s powers at work along the same general constructive lines as those which have brought civilization into being.”  (p. 37)

“I believe that the only way to make the child conscious of his social heritage is to enable him to perform those fundamental types of activity which makes civilization what it is.”  (p. 37)

“I believe, therefore, in the so-called expressive or constructive activities as the center of correlation.”  (p. 37)

“I believe that the study of science is educational in so far as it brings out the materials and processes which make social life what it is.”  (p. 38)

“I believe that one of the greatest difficulties in the present teaching of science is that the material is presented in purely objective form, or is treated as a new peculiar kind of experience which the child can add to that which he has already had.”  (p. 38)

“I believe that there is, therefore, no succession of studies in the ideal school curriculum. . . The progress is not in the succession of studies but in the development of new attitudes towards, and new interests of, experience.”  (p. 38)

“I believe firmly, that education must be conceived as a continuing reconstruction of experience; that the process and the goal of education are one and the same thing.”  (p. 38)

Dewey is subtly, but clearly, criticizing structuralism (which actually came later in its most aggressive form).  In addition, he is objecting to grade levels and subjects being divided up in such a way that a child moves through them sequentially, rather than moving through all disciplines at his level of cognitive ability all of the time.  That is, Dewey wants to see education proceed in a way that is relevant to every child at every age.  He defines education as being constructive and relevant.

Article IV.  The nature of method

Dewey emphasizes action over passivity; images over words; and interests over subjects.  The adult must observe the child to notice what direction the growing child’s curiosity is directing him or her.  Building on those interests is the adult’s responsibility.

Article V.  The school and social progress

“I believe that education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform.”   (p. 40)

“I believe that education is a regulation of the process of coming to share in the social consciousness; and that the adjustment of individual activity on the basis of this social consciousness is the only sure method of social reconstruction.”  (p. 40)

“I believe that this conception has due regard for both individualistic and socialistic ideals.  It is duly individual because it recognizes the formation of a certain character as the only genuine basis of right living.  It is socialistic because it recognizes that this right character is not to be formed merely by individual precept, example, or exhortation, but rather by the influence of a certain form of institutional or community life upon the individual, and that the social organism through the school, as its organ, may determine ethical results.”  (p. 40)

“I believe that in the ideal school we have the reconciliation of the individualistic and the institutional ideals.”  (p 40)

Dewey is describing education in which the child is prepared for life within his community but is also developed individually according to his interests.  This child is guided by adults (parents, teachers) who understand this preparation process of learning to live with others and to serve something greater than oneself.

Chapter 5, School as agent of culture I

Brameld, Theodore.  (2008).  The use of explosive ideas in education:  Culture, class, and evolution.  New York:  The New Press.

‘Internalizing’ the Idea of Culture

“To internalize is to fuse the chief characteristics of that idea with one’s own attitudes, feelings, and daily activities.  Culture becomes important to us as persons and as teachers only to the extent that such fusion takes place. . . . To internalize is to move from a merely intellectual formulation, on the one hand, to one’s own personality (one’s own patterns of behavior), on the other hand.”  (p. 66)

“He [Brameld] is, nevertheless, convinced that any student who approaches, say, the idea of culture seriously and responsibly will in the course of time become a very different kind of person and teacher than he would otherwise be. . . . the school too will begin to undergo transformation.  Every school is, in a genuine sense, the creation of those who operate it.  Thus, the kinds of learning and control that occur are, from one point of view, the fruits of whatever orientation toward life and education has developed among the members of a culture directly responsible for the enculturative process.  Teachers, surely, are among the most important of these members.”  (p. 67)

“What difference does an idea such as culture make to our conception of the school curriculum?  What different does it make to the teaching-learning process?  Finally, what difference does it make to the control of education? . . . . The curriculum is thus considered in relation to cultural order, teaching-learning in terms of cultural process, and the control of education in view of cultural goals.”  (p. 67)

Problems of the Curriculum:  the significance of cultural order

“The concept of cultural order, we remember, enables us to view the total environment fashioned by man in terms of spatio-temporal relations — a shorthand term for the fact that every culture may be viewed both in horizontal and vertical perspective, while yet embracing the past, the present, and the future.  This model of cultural order, when it becomes filled with the rich content that such a science as anthropology provides, may now be conceived as a way to organize the curriculum itself.”  (p. 68)

“What could this concept contribute to a distinctive way of unifying and integrating the curriculum of general education?  One answer lies in a controversial contention — namely, that the central obligation of education for most young people should be basically similar, and that the justification for such similarity lies in the struggles and objectives of human beings themselves.  This kind of education should be concerned first of all with the attempt to provide an understanding by the young learner not only of himself but of his relations to others:  other groups, other nations, and equally of theirs to him.”  (p. 68)

“Recall from Chapter 3 that the central core focuses upon problems of intrapersonal and interpersonal relations; that the next wider circle embraces intragroup and intergroup relations (racial, class, and others); and that the widest circle encompasses the relations of whole peoples, nations, and religions.  Thus, through this conception of order, we are able to see the world as a vast intricate network of human relations, from the most intimate to that most inclusive of ‘complex wholes,’ mankind itself.”  (p. 69)

“But, as also has been earlier pointed out, the merely spatial model of culture is defective as long as it lacks the temporal dimension.  We need to think of the curriculum of general education not only in terms of the present relationships of people, but in terms both of their roots in the past and their directions toward the future.  The latter anticipates the problem of cultural goals, to which we return, but the former suggests the need for intensive study of history . . . .”  (p. 70)

“We can better understand the significance of the study of history in a culture-oriented curriculum if we distinguish more clearly between the essentialist approach discussed in the preceding chapter, and the progressivist, also discussed.  It will be remembered that the essentialist, directly or indirectly reflecting as he does the superorganic view of culture, tends metaculturally to regard the order of culture as something ‘out there,’ already determined and structured beyond the control of individual human beings.”  (p. 70)

“Returning now to the study of history in the school, progressivists aware of the metacultural issue are likely to assert that essentialist history is often hypostatized history as well.  Because, moreover, the past is regarded as something that is irrevocably finished, it follows that the kind of history provided by the conventional curriculum is intended primarily to develop in young people an attitude of acceptance toward the out-thereness and completeness of historical events.  Culturally, such an attitude is likely to encourage a conservative frame of mind toward the social heritage.  Hence it is no accident that the essentialist school is usually regarded as an enculturative agent of reinforcement of patterns of culture that have come down to us in the course of time.”  (p. 71)

“History, understood now as the temporal phase of cultural order, may also be interpreted as an operational discipline — that is, the past is approached not as a forever-finished record of objective events but as a boundlessly fertile opportunity to interpret and reinterpret the course of human evolution.”  (p. 72)

“How, then, would a progressivist include history in general education?  If he is consistently operational, he will not, first of all, segregate history from other dimensions of learning experience anywhere nearly as much as do essentialists.  Rather, he will regard it as a vast, fruitful resource to be drawn upon in attacking every conceivable kind of problem — including problems only indirectly related to human experience, such as those of the physical sciences.  Accordingly, history teachers, in the kind of integrated curriculum suggested by cultural order, become resource persons who constantly and cooperatively work with other teachers.”  (p. 72)

Essential Guiding Questions

These “Guiding Essential Questions” are from the EDCI-886, Philosophy of American Education, Fall 2009 syllabus, taught by Dr. Kay Ann Taylor at Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS.

Guiding Essential Questions

A.  What is the purpose of education/schooling?

• social reproduction?
• social control?
• social efficiency?
• social mobility?
• making good citizens?

B.  What is

• truth?
• power?
• choice?
• democracy?
• freedom?

C.  What is the teacher’s role?  in the classroom?  in the school?  in the community?  in general?

D.  How do the Guiding Essential Questions above relate to your teaching and learning experiences and to your own personal educational experiences?  To you personally?  In the context of education?  In the context of school/schooling?  As a teacher?  As a student?  For your current or future students?

E.  How do A through D above manifest themselves in the classroom, curriculum, and instructon to promote or eliminate social justice?

Copyright 2009, Dr. Kay Ann Taylor.  As to this syllabus and all lectures, students are prohibited from selling (or being paid for taking) notes during this course to or by any person or commercial firm without the express written permission of the professor teaching thsi course.  That includes using the questions above without explicit, written permission from Dr. Taylor.

Chapter Two, The Use of Explosive Ideas in Education

Brameld, Theodore.  (2008).  The use of explosive ideas in education:  Culture, class, and evolution.  New York:  The New Press.

How We Shall Proceed

“The first chapter of each section considers the nature of the explosive idea itself.”  (p. 16)

“The second chapter in the three-stage design recalls the bridge of philosophy….What does a respective idea mean when its assumptions are critically analyzed by philosophic specialists?” (p. 17)

“Insofar as each third chapter is successful, it demonstrates how professional education becomes dependent upon basic knowledge from other sources than education.”  (p. 17)

Anticipating the Explosive Ideas

“Why, then, were they [culture, class, and evolution] selected?”  (p. 17)

The Functions of Philosophy

“One, epistemology, is concerned with examining and establishing criteria of reliable knowledge.  A second, ontology (sometimes defined synonymously with metaphysics), tries to discover criteria of reality.  A third, axiology, searches for criteria of value.”  (p. 19)

“To what extent do children in the South obtain unbiased knowledge of the Negro problem?  To what extent do children anywhere in America obtain a picture of economic and political events not colored by the propaganda or vested interests of some official or unofficial pressure group?  To what extent, also, do they have opportunity to consider under critical and responsible educational direction the changing mores of our age — especially the values of sexual morality?”  (p. 20)

Types of Educational Philosophy

“Idealists, for example, are idealistic ontologists — that is, they discover the principles of reality in their conception of the universe as spiritual or mental in substance.”  (p. 21)

“Materialists are materialistic axiologists — that is, they find the meaning of value in material events such as economic patterns.”  (p. 21)

“Pragmatists are pragmatic epistemologists — that is, truths are determined by their practical workability in ongoing experience.”  (p. 21)

“Let us call our own preferred types by the following four terms:  essentialism, progressivism, perennialism, and reconstructionism.”  (p. 22)

The Sphere of Practice

“Each of the following three sections concludes with a chapter of application to educational problems and activities.  The practices selected — curriculum, learning-teaching, and control — are obvious enough at first glance.”  (p. 24)

“To mention one other that will interest us again:  concomitant learning is the sort that occurs through direct association with people — usually through informally rather than formally planned experiences.”  (p. 25)

“One widely held view of teaching that we must be wary of is to identify it with indoctrination.” (p. 26)

Control:  “Who shall determine the policies of education?  How shall they be determined?  Who shall carry them out?” (p. 26)

“Should not teachers and even students also have a voice?  And what about the state and federal governments?”  (p. 26)

started reading Brameld

Brameld, Theodore.  (2008).  The use of explosive ideas in education:  Culture, class, and evolution.  New York:  The New Press.

I did join GoodReads.com, and I am posting updates as I read.  However, I also wrote a review of the first few pages, which I can’t seem to find again!

Anyway, when I read a book I always look at how the book is arranged.  For instance, this book has no index.  The very last printed page is the last page of the book.  It does have two Forewords.  Both were written by the series editor, Herbert Kohl.  In the Foreword to this book, Kohl mentions some big names in curriculum theory and educational philosophy.

If you’ve taken EDCI 803, curriculum development, then you will recognize the following:  Dewey, Rugg and Counts.

Another thing I noticed when I looked at the other books in this series are the authors, Scott Nearing and Maxine Greene.  Scott Nearing and his wife lived in the wilderness of Vermont?  the last 40 years of their lives; living well into their 90s by eating organic food they grew themselves, cutting firewood, living a very sustainable and rustic life.   They were part of the “back to the land” movement in the 1960’s and 1970’s.  Although Scott passed away first, his wife lived well into her late 90’s and passed away in the 1990’s.

Maxine Greene is probably best known for her years at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York City.  She has been involved in “New Visions for Public Schools” and other progressive initiatives.  She is still alive.