Democracy and Education

John Dewey. (1916; 1966). Toronto: Collier-Macmillan Canada.

The Democratic Conception in Education (81-99)

In his view of intelligence, Dewey expresses that intelligence lack of social/human factors is narrowed down only to factors concerning technical production and marketing goods to the extent that emotional life is distorted. He emphasizes enlarged physical environment and social contacts for tolerant mental life, and asserts that frequent travels and commercial tendencies contributed to the broaden contacts, thus alleviating tensions among people. [But this last view is very naive because those travels and economic flows do not necessarily bring people closer in reality. Most of all, he does not identify what he means by the closeness. He is lack of economic and political connotations in the smaller world.]

By democracy he means a "mode of associative living and of conjoint communicated experience," and writes as its characteristics increasing shared concerns and the liberation of personal capacities. As the purpose of education he writes,"a freeing of individual capacity in a progressive growth directed to social aims." [As he indicates, a common pitfall throughout the history is that social aims and its direction are hardly defined and so does his case.]

He reviews educational philosophy in three different epochs: (1) Plato believed the great truth and the society reflecting it should be stable, which is achieved by arranging individuals' roles based on what they are good for. Thus, discovering the personal aptitude and training it is the purpose of education. Dewey's criticism of Plato includes that Plato categorized individuals into three classes and did not recognize individual uniqueness. [Dewey's perspective of education is very individualistic without paying much attention to what each bring into educational environment, thus, very idealistic.] (2) With the significant studies in Nature, the eighteenth century Enlightment influenced education philosophy, namely by Rousseau. Its emphasis was given to development of individualism. Dewey, however, sees that its chief interest was in social progress toward a freer society with two distinctive aspects--cosmopolitanism and humanity. Thus in this view, individual emancipation was the agent of a progressive society, Dewey denotes. Dewey's criticism comes from the way of conducting education, which followed the natural environment--in other words, education means filling individual mind with something good and true just like seen in Nature.[This perspective is clearly shown in Emile by Rousseau.] (3) Under the German influence in the 19th century state-run public school system and nationalism spread out and the purpose of education in this paradigm was to form the citizen who can serve for the state interests and social efficiency, thus the idea of individual development receded and disciplinary training became far the most important aim of education. Even it was said that the attainment of true personality is obtained through institutions organized by the state.

Dewey poses the question of how to conduct education that preserves humanity and he answers that it should be done by the efforts of enlightened men in their private capacity. [While he criticizes Plato for his aristocratic perspective that a smart ruler will know the orderly rules and law, his idealistic individualism does not go beyond. He thinks we should rely on those few. Isn't there any systematic way of approaching the problem?]


Experience and Thinking (139-151)
Emphasizing experience, Dewey argues that even a humble experience has possibility to generate any amount of theory, but theory without an experience cannot be established. Thinking and reflection are the agent that connects experience to theory as we do not really know unless bringing certain things in relation to something else.

Thinking in Education (152-163)
For Dewey, "thinking is the method of intelligent learning" and it requires an experience. The problem in school setting is that this out-of-school ordinary experience is not reflected in pupils' learning, thus mind and activities are divorced and learning is isolated from the rest of social engagement. This separation hinders the process of thinking and creativity, which lies in putting familiar materials in an unusual context. "Only silly folk identify creative originality with the extraordinary and fanciful, " said Dewey. Therefore, his emphasis on interconnection between real life experience and school lessons becomes an core idea of curriculum development to the extent that real life materials such as 'shops' and 'gardens' integrated into class will provide opportunities for acquiring information and knowledge while carrying on progressive experience. [Although his emphasis on real life experience is agreeable in general, bringing in a model of society poses a problem because of his neglect of diversity of individual pupils' lived experience based on their cultural/social/economic/political background. Remodeling a society is not transparent as he insinuates because individuals live in different contexts. In addition, it is my ever-lasting rejection to Dewey is why we don't allow pupils to bring their own experience to class and/or dream a new society, which is totally different from the current one, for a moment.]

Intellectual and Practical Studies (262-276)

The Individual and the World (291-305)
Individualism is a modern concept. While in both Greek and medieval periods, individuals were regarded only as a channel through which a universal or divine intelligence or "reason" operated, a latent individualism smeared as a religious individualism--the salvation of individual soul-- in the medieval period, thus knowledge itself is something built up within the individual through his acts and mental states. This aspect gave birth to the 'practical individualism' that knowledge is obtained through personal experience. It, however, originates from the notion that mind is isolated from the world, which is left to be discovered, and spurred philosophic subjectivism. Dewey argues that men strive for freedom in nature and society and initiate changes in the world instead of isolating themselves from the nature. Thus self, mind and knowledge constitute a unity achieved through interactions: "The self achieves mind in the degree in which knowledge of things is incarnate in the life about him; the self is not a separate mind building up knowledge anew on its own account."

Dewey maintains that every new idea different from the custom must originate from an individual, however, sprouting it is suppressed in society because of its tendency of continuity and stability. In this light, the notion of intellectual individualism guides us further as a moral and social individualism. While intellectual activities of the individual are agencies of social progress, conformity is that of social conservation. Then, the question arises: how egoistic consciousness is related to the public world? Dewey introduces three philosophic branches with regard to this question: (1) French rationalism, which emphasizes general and impersonal forms, argues that activities will be externally consistent and thus always reach a uniformity through argument and persuasion. (2) English thought is centered on individual own pleasure and pains. The main idea of this thought is that in order to maximize the pleasure, each should be considerate of others' circumstances as well and thus a harmony is achieved. (3) German philosophy lies in between in that individuals become rational only if they absorbs the rationality of the universe and social institution. Often called absolute or objective idealism, it is termed as institutional idealism by Dewey. He evaluates that while this idealism overcame isolated individualism fallen in France and England and served to arouse state-wide public education, it tended to reinstate the principle of authority and thus left political democracy foreign.

In stating educational implication of these philosophies, Dewey emphasizes learner's perspective: originality springs from unforced response of student's own individuality, which leads to their own discovery and allows them to obtain new points of view and intellectual companionship. Intellectual servility and subjection will only serve the purpose of authority, Dewey argues. His perspective of education and democracy is unfolded as following: "A progressive society counts individual variations as precious since it finds in them the means of its own growth. Hence a democratic society must, in consistency with its ideal, allow for intellectual freedom and the play of diverse gifts and interests in its educational measures."

Vocational Aspect of Education (pp. 306-320)
By vocation Dewey means a direction of life activities in relation to others and social accomplishment that individuals play in various roles. Criticizing Plato's idea of the purpose of education, which is to discover what each person is good for and train them to master that area for social harmony, Dewey argues that he not only limits the scope of vocation but also ignores infinite capabilities that individual may possess. As seen in his note that "the vocation acts as both magnet to attract and as glue to hold," he regards vocation from a very macroscopic view to the extent to realize well-rounded personality in society. From this stand, he also writes, "the dominant vocation of all human beings at all times is living--intellectual and moral growth," thus denotes that restricting education for future occupation not only injures present development but also hinders exploring proper future right employment. In relation to the current industrial society, he asserts that increasing 'conspicuous' industrial process has brought social importance and brought to light questions of school learning to industrial life and demanded trade education. This tendency is twofold: it maintains higher education as a threshold for social status and prestige to a certain class while for the rest it turns occupation to only means for surviving, thus making education become an instrument to perpetuate the existing industrial social order--in his word, "to accomplish the feudal dogma of social predestination." Nevertheless, his pragmatic/progressive perspective is preserved in his purpose of vocational education and the way to achieve the goals: as education lies in the process of constructing a gradual transition from school materials to real life, vocational education, under the conspicuous industrial society, should integrate scientific factors that the society offers into curriculum to develop intelligence and make it more practical. [He admits that this process is not easy and emphasize the preparation to vocation should be indirect, but does not explicitly explain how to use the industrial context in such a peculiar way. Materials borrowed in class brings not only itself but also the context it is created. Without carefully conceived criticality in the adaptation, it is not an easy task.]

Autobiography, Politics and Sexuality

William Pinar. (1994). NY: Peter Lang.

Working From Within (1972. pp.7-12)
Bringing Jackson Pollock's interview on his immediacy as a way of painting for greater directness as well as his emphasis on inner world, Pinar argues that the more immediate the class becomes, the more we become immersed in the moment such that students become more honest in expressing their thinking and feeling. To him, spontaneity is a key to bring about cognitive and emotional contact. [But, this requires tremendous capability of teachers themselves. In this sense, he stresses teacher's self-reflection.]

The Method of Currere (1975, pp.19-27)
Pinar delineates a process of culturing intellectuality through self-reflective biographical approach in four stages.
Regressive: Return to the past and observe as it is.
Progressive: Relax in a slightly darkened room and think of future, then bring back the attention to matters associated with one's intellectual interests and associatively.
Analytical: Describe the biographical present and respond to it freely.
Synthetical: See oneself concretely as if in a mirror.
[This meditative engagement is not so transparent to me. Nevertheless I highly regard the way he approaches for the second phase.]

The Trial (1976, pp.29-92)
His thoughtful interpretation of the Trial by Kafka is used to support his emphasis on self-reflection. Pinar explains that K, who is lack of self-reflection--attention on his own experience, on his body and on his emotion, is arrested intellectually and phycho-socially. In other words, he is dissociated from his subjective experience. On the other hand, Pinar argues that his task is to 'portray singularity, subjectivity, the process of self-knowing' and choose autobiography as a means of writing subjectively. He quotes Dewey (1960, On Experience, nature and freedom) to support his idea of self-awareness as a tool to dissolve intellectual arrest and its movement: "but that what I have learned from them ['philosophical writing'] has been technical in comparison with what I have been forced to think upon and about because of some experience in which I found myself entangled." In this light, Pinar describes the introduction of phenomenology to the social science as a significant event, that relieves theories to the 'primary experience' and the things themselves. [It is rather long, but interesting to read how he developed and support his ideas about the importance of self-reflection. It is very intellectual and persuasive.]

Notes on the Curriculum Field (1978, pp.77-99)
Pinar seeks new curriculum possibilities in emancipation based on Habermas's acknowledgment of a distinction between theory and praxis. Habermas argues, "Decisions for the political struggle, cannot at the outset be justified theoretically and thn be carried out organizationally. The sole possible jstification at this level is consensus aimed at in practical discourse, among the participants, who, in the consciousness of their common interests and their knowledge of circumstances, of the predictable consequences and secondary consequences, are the only ones who can know the risks they are willing to undergo, and with what expectations" (quoted p.93, Theory and Practice, p33). Pinar's methodology directly reaches Habermas' argument: "the methodological framework that determines the meaning of the validity of critical propositions of this category['critical social science'] is established by the concept of self-reflection. The latter releases the subject from dependence on hypothesized powers. Self-reflection is determined by an emancipatory cognitive interest" (quoted p.87, Habermas Knowledge and Human Interest(?), 310) [It is a good historical overview on curriculum theories and Pinar carefully keeps his position regarding self-reflection and emancipatory as new curriculum possibilities and this voice gets stronger towards the end of his argument. It is well written.]

Autobiography and an Architecture of Self (1985, pp.202-222)
Pinar articulates two reasons of the loss of authentic self-acknowledgement: 1) at schools children experience clashing of their identities brought from home and 2) a capitcal economy, where everything is commodified, results in self-estrangement in its essence. From psychoanalysis theories, existential phenomenology traverse Foucault and Derria and Nietzsche, Pinar argues "the running of the course is the building of the self, the lived experience of subjectivity. Autobiography is an architecture of self, a self we create and embody as we read, write, speak and listen" (p.220). [It is amazing to see how he connects trains of thoughts through such diverse and deep analysis, but after all, I do not see the point of doing it. It is only interpretation of theories. Where is the lived experience?]