Analysis of John Dewey's Ideas of Education - Essay Example

John Dewey's ideas of education John Dewey’s system does not isolate education from the totality of life. He has the integrated approach for the evolution of the human being and therefore his views are admired by the psychologists and the philosophers as well. His educational approaches are innovative like outdoor education, adult training and experiential therapies. Dewey tenders before the educator an important issue related to the students. Treat each one of them as special, as they have unique differences. An individual is genetically different and the cumulative effect of the past experiences varies. Mostly, educational instructions have an established pedagogical method, and each student will react to it and grasp from it, depending upon one’s quality of experiences. So, the teaching curriculum needs to be designed taking into account and caring for the individual differences. Dewey writes, “The history of educational theory is marked by opposition between the idea that education is development from within and that it is formation from without; that it is based upon natural endowment and that education is a process of overcoming natural inclination and substituting in its place habits acquired under external pressure.”(1998, p.1) According to Dewey, education apart from being a private ambition and accomplishment has a broader social purpose, to shape oneself as an effective member of the democratic society.” Dewey argues that the one-way delivery style of authoritarian schooling does not provide a good model for life in democratic society. Instead, students need educational experiences which enable them to become valued, equal, and responsible members of society.” (John Dewey….) What is theory? Theory is based on other man’s experience. The misunderstanding about Dewey is about his support for progressive education. According to Dewey, just by attacking the traditional education methods, one doesn’t become progressive. Freedom eulogized by votaries of progressive education, is no solution. Structure and order are hallmarks of the learning method, and it must adhere to a clear theory of experience; the whims of teachers or students are of no consequence and they will not deliver goods expected of a good system of education. Dewey articulates a system of education on the basis of a theory of experience. The need is to understand how humans have the experiences, how they encounter it, before designing an effective system of education. Dewey presents two central tenets of theory of experience, continuity and interaction. Every moment of an individual’s life is experiencing. An individual carries the permanent load of experiences along with him. Education becomes critical to provide a sense of direction and skills to meet the challenges of living in the society. Every experience has an effect, either positive or negative. The accumulated load of past experiences tangibly influences one’s future experiences. This is the secret of continuity of experiences. One’s past experiences are both an asset and the liability to an individual. They either build or break the personality. Their cumulative influence is either good or bad. A teacher doesn’t have control over the past experiences of a student. But it is the duty of the teacher to assess the merits/demerits of the past experiences, so that better educational situations can be provided to each student, depending upon the level of their progression. The teacher’s option is to control the present situation; a student’s past cannot be altered or amended. Proper appreciation of the past experiences of a student will place the teacher in a better position to provide quality education, which would prove meaningful and fructifying for the student. Dewey writes, “The critical issue is an education that seeks to make learning meaningful is the ability of the teacher to force interactions among students’ impulses, curiosity, prior knowledge, and the subject matter under study—to bring it into experience….,rather than assume the learner’s experience is irrelevant.”(1998, p.153) “Most broadly considered, Dewey’s work consummated the trends in education below the university level initiated by pioneer pedagogues animated by the impulses of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. This was especially clear in his views on child education which built on ideas first brought forward by Rousseau, Pestalozzi and Froebel in Western Europe and by kindred reformers in the United States.”(John Dewey's Theories …) Dewey understood the precarious placement of a child in the family and social set up. He understood why the movement to reform child education needs to be viewed from the historical context. Children as a class are not oppressed theoretically, but they are the weakest, defenseless and dependent section s of the population. Children cannot take decisions that affect their present or future life. Much depends upon the attitudes of the elders and the governors of the educational institutions that help or hinder the desired progress of the children. The placement of a child is the important factor to be considered as for the mode of education that will appeal to it. It needs to be in tandem with its past experiences. The child may not be ideally placed, from the point of view of its physical, educational and cultural needs. The children have no control over this aspect of their birth and upbringing. Most adults cannot also be blamed for such a state of affairs; they too have inherited conditions from their parents, and the social circumstances in which they were placed in. The inheritance is not the matter of their choice. Being unaware of the remote cause of their misery, the children direct their resentments against the members of the immediate circle. The impact of the civilization has profound effect on the system of education. The changes are demanding and necessary. Dewey anticipates and articulates how the new situation forces parents and the children to seek new expectations thrust upon them without asking for them individually. Their plight is like the wooden log in the rushing water current. They are powerless to swim against the current and why they should! The impact of industrialization on the social conditions of the children belonging to poor families and brought up in a tenement crowed cities, is entirely different from a child brought up in a posh, independent family farm house. The problems of readjustment differ somewhat according to the child’s social status. Dewey writes, “The teacher’s role is not passive; instead, the teacher is actively exploring how to construct experiences and adapt material so it connects to the interests and capacities of the learner. The mutual adaptation between the learner and the material to be learned is what allows an experience to be educative.”(1998, p.153) Jay Martin sums up the efforts and contribution of Dewey in the field of education, thus: “For philosophers, he was a philosopher, immensely learned and technically brilliant. For those people engaged with issues of education, whether experts in the field or anguished parents, he was the leading exponent of the new learning. For the citizenry, he was an advocate and combatant in the rough-and-tumble of American politics, public affairs, and public policy, as well as a powerful controversialist for liberal causes.”(2002, p.4) He understood the demands for the reconstruction of the educational system, perfectly well and the roles of the teachers, the parents and the students. Works Cited: Dewey, John. Experience and Education: Google Books, 1998. John Dewey, the Modern Father of Experiential Education Retrieved on May 8, 2010 John Dewey's Theories of Education: Article by W. F. Warde (George Novack). www.marxists.org/archive/novack/works/1960/x03.htm - Cached - Similar Retrieved on May 8, 2010 Martin, Jay. The Education of John Dewey: A Biography:Columbia University Press, 2002. Read More