Dewey 2

What does child-centred mean?Supporting a reading of Experience

and Education chapters 1-3

Child centredness: how simple?

• It certainly means ‘putting the child at the centre of the learning event’

• Does it mean something else besides this?

Dewey’s educational philosophy

Pedagogical

Social/ political

The School and Society

Democratic Context

4 Dr F.Long, Education

• Herbart’s Method: 5 steps– Preparation (ask for previous

experiences, thoughts)– Presentation of new content

– presented with utmost care and logic (representation by learners)

– Association – informal conversation to link new knowledge to old, multiply links

– Generalisation ; what general principle might arise from this new learning? Extend the learning

– Application to different contexts of what is learned

• Dewey’s method: 5 Steps• Confusion. The teacher

introduces the confusion usually by skillful questioning

• -learners attempt to formulate the problem or problems

• Hypothesis. A type of mental construct arises, a form of theory that arises from practice – a hypothesis

• Testing the hypothesis: an experiment is designed to test it (Inquiry, p. 112)

• Operational Idea – the well tested hypothesis leads to operational ideas

Johann Friedrich Herbart 1776-1841

• Influences on Method:

• Child’s experience is the key starting point

• Child’s interest must be aroused • Child’s experience then needs

instruction• The presentation by Teachers is key to

the re-presentation of learners• The child’s representations

Dr F.Long, Education 6

Lev Vygotsky (1896 – 1934)• Zone of Proximal Development

Dr F.Long, Education 7

(Zaretskii,2009)

• We show the child how the problem should be solved and look to see whether or not, imitating what he’s been shown, he completes the problem.

• Or we begin to solve the problem and allow the child to complete it.

• Or we give him problems that are beyond the bounds of his mental age to solve in collaboration with another, more developed child,

• or, finally, we explain to the child the principles for solving the problem, pose a leading question, break the problem down into pieces for him, and so forth.

• In short, we ask the child to solve problems that are beyond the bounds of his mental age using one form of collaboration or another (Vygotsky as cited in Zaretskii, 2009, p. 76)

• Zaretskii, V. K. (2009), The Zone of Proximal Development: What Vygotsky Did Not Have Time to Write, Journal of Russian & East European Psychology 47(6), 70-93.

Dr F.Long, Education 8

Chapter 1• Some contrasts:– The education is development from within or formation

from without (p. 17)– Formation from without:

• Transmit past knowledge to present generation for future use (habits of knowledge, conduct, school organisation)

• Textbooks a central feature, teaching quality significant– Development from within:

• Cultivation of individuality (p. 19), internal discipline, learning from experience, vital appeal, dynamic aims and materials

• To locate subject-matter within experience (p.20)– Dewey’s new educational foundation: the child’s

experience

Chapter 1: Query

• Main Fault of Progressivism: to constitute itself negatively as a reaction against traditional schemes and methods rather than positively

• To define itself by means of what it stands against rather than what it stands for

• What does it stand for?

Chapter 2

• What is educative experience?– Miseducative experiences

• Cause a rut so the same behaviour is repeated without variation• Cause enjoyment but in a careless way• Disconnected experiences – ‘dispersive, disintegrated, centrifugal

habits’ (p. 26)• Linking learning to boredom

• A philosophy of education?– Constituted by a plan for deciding upon

• Subject-matter (p. 28)• Methods of instruction and discipline• Social organisation of the school

Chapter 3• The nature of experience– Emotional as well as intellectual attitudes (p.35)– Growth leading to flourishing (p.35) –lego? A spoiled

child? (p.37) – ‘dynamic system’– Experience - a moving force for the good (p.38)– The guidance of the mature person (p.38)– Experience linked to objective conditions (p.39),

environing conditions (p.40) – Example of feeding a baby (p.41) meeting of internal and

external conditions (p.42)– The two principles of continuity and interaction (p.44)– What education can prepare for the future? (p.49)

Education, Dr F.Long 13

Contrasts

• Traditional– “Dogmatic” knowledge

compartmentalised and disconnected from child’s experience

– A “diet of predigested materials” (Experience and Education, p. 46)

• Progressive– “the beginning of instruction

shall be made with the experience learners already have” (EE, p.74)

– “expansion and organization of subject-matter through growth of experience” (EE,p.74)

– Social situations• Progress marked by a

continuous spiral (EE,p.79) – a laboratory research

Education, Dr F.Long 14

Summary Words: Interest

• Interest– Avoid drudgery– Avoid routine– Avoid the teacher’s ideas alone or ideas for

their own sake– Promote spontaneous activity like playing– Promote doing and enjoying“Education is development within, by, and for

experience” (EE, p.28)

Education, Dr F.Long 15

Second Summary Word: Experience

• Experience “Every experience is a moving force” EE, p.38)– Avoid callousness– Avoid entertainment– Avoid disconnections– Promote Interaction of subject areas– Promote Interaction of pupils– Promote Continuity of learning, (reinforcement) from

earlier understanding to later understanding

Education, Dr F.Long 16

Third Summary Word: Discipline

• Think of teaching and learning together as an activity• Think of this activity as a game. How are the rules of

this game infringed?• Participants submit to the rules for the sake of the

activity• There is no arbitrary authority

“the control of individual actions is effected by the whole situation in which individuals are involved…” (EE, p.53)

Education, Dr F.Long 17

Main points• Like Herbart, Dewey wants to set learning on a

proper psychological footing: All learning is purposive, directional, connected to the learner’s life

• Links education to society and the democratic process. Do you understand how this link is made in Dewey’s system?

• Desire has been replaced by discipline in most traditional schools. How does Dewey propose reversing this? How could the new structure be disciplined?

• Learning situations. How different are these from traditional ways of approaching the curriculum?

‘democratic’ knowledge

I believe that the only true education comes through the stimulation of the child’s powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself. Through these demands he is stimulated to act as a member of a unity...

In order to know what a power really is we must know what its end, use, or function is; and this we cannot know save as we conceive of the individual as active in social relationships.John Dewey, My Pedagogic Creed

18 Dr F.Long, Education

Definition

• Inquiry is the controlled or directed transformation of an indeterminate situation into one that is so determinate in its constituent distinctions and relations as to convert the elements of the original situation into a unified whole

• John Dewey, The Logic of Inquiry (1938), p. 104