Dewey-ing it, Progressive Style

"Don't worry, Scout...Our teacher says Miss Caroline's introducing a new way of teaching. She learned about it in college. It'll be in all the grades soon. You don't have to learn much out of books that way--it's like if you wanta learn about cows, you go and milk one, see?...I'm just trying to tell you the new way they're teachin' the first grade, stubborn. It's the Dewey Decimal System." (Lee, 18)
--Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: Warner, 1982.



John Dewey and the Progressives

John Dewey. Who in education has not heard this name? When I think back to my undergrad education classes, I think of all the books that I was required to read that my professors believed had a positive impact on education. Among the books, The Courage to Teach, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and The Boy Who Would Be a Helicopter, was John Dewey's Experience and Education. I would love to say that I remember everything about the book, but that was 11 years ago, and to be honest, it has been sitting on my shelf until a couple of weeks ago when I noticed that John Dewey had a chapter dedicated to him in Saving Schools. From Paul Peterson's chapter on John Dewey, I have pulled out some important aspects of Dewey's beliefs on education; many of which I believe have impacted me personally in my career as a teacher.



Dewey contributed to 4 tenets of education; two focused on personalizing education to the child -Dewey was influenced by the French philosopher Rousseau in this regard, who in Emile seemed to say that the best education was the one the child discerned for himself (42) - while the other two focused on tight central control on education. (42) They are:

1. Children should be accepted as they are because they are all different.



2. The natural curiosity of children needs to be aroused and used to motivate learning.



3. A child should be socialized into the community.



4. The social order of America needs reform.

Dewey believed that education needed to be focused on engaging the child into the learning process, rather than having them taught by rote. In came the new ideas of project-based or hands-on learning (sound familiar?), the more progressive thoughts of where education needed to go; although to some critics, this style was thought to be more of a justification for disorganized teaching. (41) Dewey helped push the "whole-word" method of spelling and reading instead of the traditional phonics based instruction, while also pushing the use of manipulatives rather than memorization, especially in regards to math skills. Vocational education and elective courses that would help students to become more active learners also grew in number during this time.

It is important to remember that Dewey did not believe that traditional education should be scrapped; there needs to be a balance between the styles that would help students to learn. To help achieve this, teachers need to be sufficiently trained and the school boards themselves need to be focused on the educational needs of the students, rather than the personnel matters and administrative details (49). This would be an area of education that would remain challenging, even to present day when education is continually attacked by the public.

In his ideals, I can definitely see how Dewey, 80 years later, directly impacted my own education as a teacher, as well as a public school student. I never realized the extent until reading this chapter and thinking back to my early days as a student and teacher, which does make a very strong argument for all beginning teachers to read the writings of John Dewey. And...ALL teachers should go back and revisit the readings during their career!

Peterson, Paul E. "John Dewey and the Progressives." Saving Schools: from Horace Mann to Virtual Learning. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap of Harvard UP, 2010. Print.