Roadblocks: Maybe Dewey Gives Us Too Much Credit
I sort of left my Roadblocks series alone for a few days, although many of the little posts I’ve made this week have been beating around the bush. This is an argument that I get into with myself a bit, because it’s a situation where I have to have faith in something when the visible evidence doesn’t always support it.
My philosophical background is in John Dewey’s version of pragmatism, and the theories of democracy and education that he produced as a result. It’s a vision that says that human beings have the capacity to grow by using their intelligence to understand the world around them. It says that this capacity is best utilized in a free and democratic society, where everyone serves as a partner in the project of inquiry. When we can share what we have learned, listen to what others have to say about it, and add their contributions to what we originally figured out, we get a richer, clearer picture of the world around us. We also build skills and tools that we can use to solve the next problem that comes along.
I believe in this vision. The reason I have chosen teaching as a career is that I believe that I can use what I have learned to help students develop the tools to be good citizens. In the process I expect to improve my own skills as well.
But you know, there are days when my faith in the vision is sorely tested by reality. There are decades of data that suggest that Americans as a whole are not very well-informed about policy issues. Elections are frequently decided by a minority of the eligible voters because two-fifths or more of the eligible voters don’t show up. The voters who do show up often don’t really know who or what they’re voting for, so we get wild swings in policy direction and ridiculous forms of institutionalized gridlock. There’s a strain of anti-intellectualism in our society that suggests that people who do intelligently investigate the world shouldn’t be trusted (unless they’re figuring out how to get more channels into our TVs).
When I see the state of the world I wonder if we’re really the intelligent inquirers that pragmatism makes us out to be.
Now, part of my job as a teacher is to help change that. Dewey’s theory of education is built on the idea that as children we are naturally prone to inquiry about our world, and educational institutions should be built to harness, channel, and amplify that natural inquiry so that “our world” gets wider and wider as we grow older. But if adults aren’t always interested in inquiry, might it not stand to reason that not every student is going to be, either?
Inquiry-driven, performance-based learning demands a lot of work on the part of the learner. The independence that it offers leaves the students with less of a road map than some other models of education. I haven’t figured out the way to make that appeal to every student, to inspire them to take ownership of their own education. Some do because that’s who they are, and some don’t because that’s who they are. So the ongoing challenge for me is to figure out how to grow that first category, and that’s the argument I often have with myself at night.
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.