AERA Monday: "The Origins of Dewey's Dewey's Theory of Education: The Quest for Wholeness"

Scheduled Time: Mon, Apr 11 - 4:05pm - 6:05pm Building/Room: Hilton Montreal
Bonaventure / Montreal Ballroom, Section Outremont

Herbert M. Kliebard, University of Wisconsin–Madison

(after piece of bad pizza for $3.67 +tip)

• (Look up Dewey's notion of Transformative Learning)


• Kiebard's books: The Language of the Classroom, Forging the American
  Curriculum, School to Work , Changing Course, The Struggle for the American
  Curriculum.


• John Dewey: his fate has been to have his work sloganized for decades.


• champion of "American Values"


• was derided b/c philosophy "lacked rigor" (most likely due to
  Cold War and the Soviet schools)


• Pulled back up in early 1990s


• philosophy best articulated (D says) in Democracy and education


• Inspired by Thomas Huxley's textbook on Physiology, used by Dewey in Vermont,
  junior year, 1887. (when he was 18 or 19 years old. He says this is the model
  he hoped to propagate.


• title: "Lessons in Elementary Physiology" (a conventional exposition
  on the workings of the human body


• more likely  "Elements of Physiology and Hygiene" (on the
  maintenance of good health), mental hygiene and the interrelationships between
  mind and body (quote: "nature presents problems not to separates, but
  to mind and body tied up into one being") (close paraphrase)


• Dewey fascinated by Hegel's demand for unification.


• exitence of wall between mind/body , individual/society, life/school, etc.was
  for Dewey more than a cold intellectual pursuit. It was an emotional quest.

Looking at 3 essays

first "The ethics of Democracy" (1888)

• reacting against Maime's "Ancient Law", (maybe "Main" or
  Mayne?)


• Popular government (Maine's last book) "the ruling multitude
  is easily formed by political manipulation" also "people are holding
  political views the way they hold religious views -- without room for examination
  or negotiation"


• Unenlightened masses are granted absolute power. Popular education offers
  a possible solution, but education seems to only spread catch-phrases that
  have little to do with government.


• Maime: Democracy needs to rely on elite scientists to survive, because
  they do not have the education to make good decisions.


• democracy: government by social will.


• populace as grains of sand in need of some sort of agent to make them into
  mortar.

second: "[missed]"

• Dewey took on the "reflex arc" in 1896. Draws heavily on William
  James, but also critiques Mame's version of democracy. the reflex arc reduces
  the child's behavior to a mechanical process of a bunch of nerves. Democracy
  also, is not just a bunch of people with voting rights.


• D: seeing the candle light is not physical/psychological, it is spiritual/materialistic

third: "Interpretation of the Savage [native] Mind"

• felt that morality should not be on fixed scale.


• disagreed that Savages could be ranked morally relative to Victorian generals
  (using Victorian Scales)


• Dewey used occupations (fundamental modes of living)


• William Torrey Harris's 5 windows to the soul.


• Dewey says there is no principle unity to these 5 windows (but there is
  in "occupations"), so he used occupations to provide cohesion to
  his curriculum


• but he used occupations like "making candles" to provide insights
  into some of the educational activities,


• these occupations rooted the children into the psychological foundations
  of their culture, by visiting the past.

conclusion:

• social groups function within the contexts of their environment


• (poor photographer is waiting patiently for Herb to look up)