Additional Reading
Questions for Dewey:
Nationalizing Education
1. Dewey makes the statement on pg 268. "Since the idea of the nation is equal opportunity for all, to nationalize education means to use the school as a means for making this idea effective." Does education today reflect this statement?
Education as Engineering
1. Dewey compares modern bridge building to education in this piece. He basically says "that to his knowledge there was no definite art to modern bridge building until after bridges of the new sort had been constructed." Dewey thinks that the ability and biological/psychological means to build a new educational system are already present in people, but we tend to think about the system we have rather than think outside the box about a new system entirely. He sees the problem with education as human and not scientific at all. Do you feel he is right?
2. Is Dewey's idea of taking an individual thought and running with it even conceivable in today's current system? Can we as teachers build a new bridge without careful planning and consideration?
3. Dewey relates teachers to followers and that the more docile young are the ones who grow up to be teachers and consequently listen docilely to the voice of authority. Is this the case for today's teachers? Why or Why not?
4. We have a saying in our culture that goes 'he's got that down to a science" The phrase means that a person has become so accustomed to doing something a certain way that it becomes rudimentary. Dewey sees this as the problem with education. He says that "we confuse faith with worship and term science what is only justification of habit." We as a system have committed our educational system to habits and are unwilling to experiment. Dewey sees education going no where for this reason. Is he right?
Strike 6
Strike says that we need to keep separate the question of what the right decision is from the question that constitutes legitimacy in decision making. Is the teacher in the 1st case in the right just because she knows whats best?
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6 comments:
These are excellent questions!
I thought the article Lindsay posted was interesting. You’re probably not surprised to hear me say I’m not in favor of nationalized public education. We’re already headed in this direction with the nationalization of education standards. I do believe that education reform is needed. However, increased federal government control will not fix the problems, but will create new ones. Imagine a day when every teacher in every 3rd grade classroom across the nation is teaching the exact same lesson on the exact same day. No tailoring the curriculum to the students and their diverse needs. No letting learning flow out of the child’s experience. No need for creative, well-trained teachers. I hope that’s not where we’re headed. If that’s where we end up, I’ll find a new career.
I think in some ways nationalizing education would be a good thing. For one, those students who have to move often times have a hard time comparing what he/she was learning at the old school with the new school. This may sound really minor but I babysit for a child who had this exact problem. His family moved from up north and he spent the majority of the first quarter sitting around bored because he had already learned the material. That was precious time that he could have learned new material rather than sitting around bored out of his mind. On the other hand I do not think that education should be nationalized because there can be equal opportunity and not every school be the same. Equal opportunity does not mean that everyone learns the same exact thing, the same exact way. It just means that they are given the opportunity to learn material. Looking back on my educational journey I learned things differently than what they learned but somehow we know the same stuff. One subject matter is state history. I went to a school in North Carolina so I learned the history of North Carolina but my friends that attended school in South Carolina learned South Carolinas history. If we nationalize education then how are we going to be able to fit in learning about our surroundings and where we grew up? I agree with Dewey that a child should be able to learn through experience and if we nationalize education fully then children's creativity will be stifiled.
I would like to address question 4. I do believe that in a lot of situations, especially education "'he's got that down to a science" is a problem. In order to learn, individuals need to experience and learn from those experiences. If we as a society want everything to be habit then we are going to be creating a society full of machines and robots (sort of like the book 1985). I can honestly say that a lot of the lessons that I have learned over my lifetime have been because of experiences and most of the time I took those experiences and tried to fix the issue with a habit. 99.9% of the time that habit did not work and I had to come up with a new solution. We need to allow our students to think for themselves and experience life. If we are only telling students what to do then what is the point of education? Overall, I think that it is best that be focus on the process rather than the product.
I believe that the standardized testing and nationalized public education go against humane nature. It's humane nature to question, wonder, and be curious about the unknonw. Standardized testing leaves no room for going off the path of that lesson for the day.
It is important for students to be interested in what they are learning, and by stiffling their imaginations by rushing through material to satisfy standards is detrimental.
I agree with Julie, despite the topic that Ashley brought up, where students have moved it is unrealistic to think that everyday in classrooms across the nation students will be learning the exact same material. Has anyone ever taken into account that students across the nation do not have the same school schedules, do not always attend class all on the same day either due to state holidays, weather, or teacher scheduling.
Can you imagine what places like Disney World would be like if every child in the United States had the same exact spring break, nightmare.
All joking aside, I think it is important for some type of reform to take place, but nationalized public education is not the answer.
On another note, I completely disagree with question 3 in which Dewey believes that teachers are the more docile young. I don't know how well you all know me, but I am anything but docile. While not one to "cause trouble," I disagree that many teachers are quiet and easy to control, but then again I can only speak for myself. I do believe that many teachers are left with not choice but to be controlled by their administration, the school board, the district and the state, which is unfortuante.
I agree with Ashley, that learning needs to be associated with the experience, and doesn't need to be "second nature." Students and teachers alike do not need to be reactive, they need to be proactive in terms of education.
To some small extent, I am in favor of nationalizing education. Our educational system has been dictated by numerous school districts having "local control" since the 1700s. School reforms are definitely needed because we have made little progress in raising students' achievement to the levels now required to compete in a global world. Our country spends more money on schools than nearly every other nation: yet, we rank very low on international achievement comparisons. Due to local control, it is impossible for us to know where students stand. Perhaps it is time to establish national standards in core subjects like reading, science, and math. Schools should be given only one national set of goals which would free educators to collaborate locally to get the job done. It just does not make sense to have 50 boards of education develop 50 sets of curricula and manage 50 school systems- especially in this day and age.
I would also like to comment on Ashley's statement about the child moving from the north. I moved from NH to SC when I was going into 2nd grade and my sister was entering 7th grade. My sister was given work to do here that she had covered in 5th grade in NH but I was on the same level as in NH. The schools in the north are generally more unified than those in the south and they progress at a much higher pace. Having my sister waste almost two years of education was absurd.
I also was very interested in the article and in reading the comments left before me. I am not a fan of nationalized education, although I definitely agree that there are some reforms that need to take place.
While nationalized education may alleviate some of the problems of disparity that come from much of school funding based on property taxes, I also think that some aspects of nationalizing education are not as appealing, such as stricter curriculum standards, less allowance for creativity, etc.
To be honest though, my bigger concern is that so many government-run departments are bloated, wasteful, and inefficient. While working in government, I saw so much wasteful spending, so much uninformed decision making, and in many cases such a lack of communication that resulted in needless backlog and additional problems. Don't get me wrong, our current system doesn't run smooth as silk, but I just don't see nationalizing education solving the problems either.
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