This seems to me like a good way to end a very difficult year.
Every so often, it is useful to remember the purposes of education.
It is not about test scores.
It is not about readiness for college and career.
It is not about readiness to be a global competitor.
It is the process of developing judgment, humanity, character, ethical and moral sensibility, one’s sense of self and sense of civic responsibility.
A journalist recently asked me what to read to learn about Dewey’s vision of education.
This was my recommendation.
What do you think?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is my 11th year teaching in public schools. Planning, teaching, and reflecting with Dewey, and other theorists, in mind, keeps getting me in trouble with admins and compliant teachers. Paying attention in undergrad will not earn you favorable marks on your Danielson or Marzano evaluation rubric.
Having taught dozens of graduate classes in district administration and organization – every class has read Dewey’s Pedagogical Creed and each student assigned to write his/her Pedagogical Creed.
Why? Because it is the right and good thing to do and teach – and because every child in k-12 school has grown up in an NCLB-world.
Why? Because all teachers and administrators with less than 17 years experience (which is many) have been teaching / leading in an NCLB-world.
This is their normal.
And, knowing that many will work in districts and states where their personal/professional Dewey-esque beliefs have not reached the surface of their reflection or may conflict with the district, all are reminded to take out their statement periodically – read it – lose sleep over it – act on it!
Push your adminstrators – colleagues – boards – what do you REALLY believe?
What is your “creed?”
WOW. great! No one has experience because they eliminate tenure and thus they remove the salary and benefits that a an experienced, educated, dedicated, talented professional deserves
“I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living.”
Yes.
‘ I believe that every teacher should realize the dignity of his calling; that he (or she) is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of proper social order and the securing of the right social growth.”
Yes.
Bill Gates, Eva, Campbell, and their ilk don’t get this and never will because they are not teachers and they see education only as a business and a profit generator.
Gates’ et. al.’s version and application of the profit at any cost so prevalent and insipid when talking about the “business model” is warped … and btw, so is dump’s.
I LOVE John Dewey.
Thank you, Diane.
May the work and ideas of Dewey flourish, enrich, and educate … to promote, protect, and uphold:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Thank you! I love having this. Too bad it is so rarely honored in our school system. I will pass it on.
Thank you for posting this. What is it about John Dewey, his timelessness, relevancy and provocation to think. “It is,” as you write so economically, “the process of….”
Happy New Year!
“I believe that all reforms which rest simply upon the enactment of law, or the threatening of certain penalties, or upon changes in mechanical or outward arrangements, are transitory and futile.”
Yes. And exactly why charter schools and such other school reforms cannot possibly bring improvement.
“I believe that next to deadness and dullness, formalism and routine, our education is threatened with no greater evil than sentimentalism. I believe that this sentimentalism is the necessary result of the attempt to divorce feeling from action.”
Dewy would turning over in his grave if he could see what we have devolved into under the guise of “reform.” Where is the discovery of oneself, constructivism and community connection in depersonalized learning or for profit education?
Correction: Dewey
I believe that the subject-matter of the school curriculum should mark a gradual differentiation out of the primitive unconscious unity of social life.
“I believe that we violate the child’s nature and render difficult the best ethical results, by introducing the child too abruptly to a number of special studies, of reading, writing, geography, etc., out of relation to this social life.”
……
It definitely violates the child’s nature to not let kids learn by playing. Somehow common sense in child development has been overcome by the greed factor to make money for tech companies.
Culture is everything, and our culture is being corrupted from without. WE the people are UNIFIED in our beliefs for human dignity, for justice and fairness. We Americans believe in human dignity and justice — no matter how much the corrupt forces that are being brought to bear on us, in the media and by a president who is not merely ignorant, but monstrous.
it is the home and the people who teach our children — and our people are good. Americans are great people… Trump got it wrong. He can only diminish America’s standing, but in the end WE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HAVE GREAT HEARTS.
He and the billionaires can try to write a curriculum that diminishes our people’s knowledge, but it won’t change our hearts.
We the PEOPLE will teach our kids that words matter, THAT CHARACTER IS DESTINY, THAT INTEGRITY WORKS, and that LIES cannot be the basis for success.
I grew up reading Dewey. My first paper for my education course was based on his ideas.
Thanks you, Diane.
Simply, YES. Is Dewey still taught in pre-service programs? These ideas are the guide for many of us who are seasoned teachers. We must get them to the future teachers – their minds and hearts need Dewey’s words to carry on. Thanks, Diane.
Yes, All teachers need to really be immersed in Dewey’s work – as well as Vygotsky’s. Teachers who are empowered to become experts can understand research and use it to ground their choices. They should never be given ‘scripts’ that are part of the ‘uncommon schools’ movement. Dewey would cringe at what is happening in many charter schools.
Chiara has often written on this blog about the importance of looking at how educational issues need to be looked at in terms of a system with interconnecting and interacting parts, not—as is so often the case when those pushing corporate education reform explain their “disruptive innovations” in pursuit of $tudent $ucce$$—as separate and unrelated bits and pieces.
The selling of charters come immediately to mind.
I was reminded of her many acute observations while I read Dewey’s Creed.
And not a new idea.
What became a poem, from John Donne’s 1624 Meditation 17, in modern English:
“No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were:
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.”
An excellent posting.
And a most excellent New Year’s greeting to all!
😎
How wonderful to have conversations with you, and the brilliant people who regard this teacher’s room as a golden place where emends meet.
Happy New Year… not os Crazy TA
Susan, you are a treasure!
Tune in tomorrow morning.
Meanwhile, have a wonderful evening.
Be safe. Laugh. Sing. Stay sober.
Happy New Year, dear friends.
May I suggest this as the soundtrack to accompany the sentiment of this Dewey’s creed, Diane’s summation, and the wonderful comments made? Happy New Year to all:
GregB: wonderful suggestion!
To return the favor, a bit of Albert Einstein to see us out of the Old Year and into the New Year—
“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.”
😎
Wonderful, KTA!
Darn autocorrect!!!
☹️
Should read: “Logic will get you from A to B; imagination will get you everywhere.”
😎
Ignoring or minimizing Dewey’s mindset on education is like ignoring or minimizing Steven Krashen on language acquisition.
Thank you, Diane, for the creed!
I don’t disagree with you often NF, but generally, I disagree with the Krashen school of language acquisition unless you are talking about a course of second language study that starts in early elementary and has components of immersion built into the school day and continues up through high school with the same components.
Duane,
I especially refer to the idea of comprehensible input, which takes on many forms and actions, and which makes critical differences in acquiring not just your first language, but a second one as well. Take it from me, who speaks four languages fluently and had to learn the very hard way.
In that sense, Krashen cannot be ignored. His is a foundation to anyone studing a language or linguistics.
Duane & Norwegian,
I too found many passages that spoke directly to effective ways to teach foreign language – active rather than passive, based directly on social experience of daily life, etc – felt like they were talking to me about TPR & TPRS (Krashen & Blaine Ray)
There is never any one which way to teach and learn anything effectively. Different strokes . . . Different learning styles. Krashen does add to the repertoire of knowledge, but he is not necessarily the foundation of it. But he is simply part of it.
Of course. But I’m speaking from the perspective of an American. The teaching of modern foreign languages here — in K12 that is–resembled circa-1910 prep-school Latin classes right up into the ’90’s. Changes since then have mostly been poorly-implemented tweaks. Even during the brief blip of early [before age 11]-start (rolled back due to budget cuts in all but wealthy areas), 3rd-5th graders in my town got a couple of songs & reading/writing prioritized over listening/speaking, for 15mins 2x/wk. My youngest actually got a decent conversational course in 11th-12th– ironically, created for (& only available to) SpEd kids who had to forgo for-lang 5th-10th to accommodate resource room. He was the only one of my 3 [all verbally-oriented musicians] to take to it & continue it in college.
Fortunately for-lang-teaching has yet to be captured by CCSS, which leaves some flexibility to indiv lang depts/ teachers– but many schools are doing their best to hamstring themselves by tying the [excellent] ACTFL stds to accountability schemes.
I mentioned TPR/TPRS because it’s the only alternative approach I’ve seen adopted by districts (not many, & mostly in SW US). I have depended mostly on Euro sources to develop my PreK for-lang enrichment course.
Not much there to disagree with-a lot to agree with. Seems like all prospective teachers should read and comprehend what he has to say about teaching and learning.
It is good writing…..with a lot of wisdom, but there is a source of irrelevance to it. The date, 1897, means that it was not dealing with some complex political and social issues, which take far more than a nicely written creed. Women are now allowed to vote. The integration of schools was ordered, and is being fought, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes pretty blatantly. There was no argument going on back then regarding whether schools should be public, or privatized. Social problems are deeply embedded, and it seems not wise to pretend they do not exist and affect society.
Nice words….magic is kind of difficult to achieve.
Joe,
In 1897, American society faced some major economic and social problems, which must have seemed far worse than now. People living in degraded conditions in cities, the elites living in splendor, deep bias against blacks, Catholics, Jews, immigrants; Jim Crow laws; desperate poverty. It was not an idyllic time. Under the Trump administration, we are rolling back every law and policy that ameliorated the lives of the masses.
Thanks….Dewey would be proud of your response to me.
Someone correct me if I am wrong, but underserved areas of the United States were in the process of being privatized and publicly developed at that time. In Tennessee, hundreds of Methodist and Presbyterian schools were planted in out of the way places sometimes beside or in addition to the public schools that were being set up.
In my county, 32 school districts served 95 schools and over 5000 students. Several private schools were scattered across the county as well, four of them prominent, and one of which was beginning to serve an extended geographical area. In the Appalachian region, strapped for cash as were all parts of the country that produced commodities, mission schools from almost all of the mainstream churches sought to educate to alleviate poverty.
The difference I see in Dewey’s time and ours is that finance had not entered the picture that was education. Today finance has given manufacture to the rest of the world so that it can focus on robbing the public coffers for personal gain. In Dewey’s day, finance was following the raw materials. Massive trees were felled and stripped of their bark for the production of tannin. Miners tore into lodes of ore, and money tumbled out. By the time my father went to college in 1932, he could visit such places as the Copper Basin, where smelting copper had produced acid fogs that killed fifty square miles of East Tennessee.
If we allow finance to monetize education, the ecological disaster that will result will look different, but be same. It will be the wasteland of the lives of our children instead of our countryside. But the poor are always invisible.
Dear Professor Ravitch, I read all your mailings with interest, am always given food for thought and more reason to work for education. This sharing of Dewey’s vision is particularly valuable! Thank you for a life dedicated to children and through them to parents, to education, to a decent society. Sincerely, Peter Castaldi
Thank you, Peter!
” I believe that much of present education fails because it neglects this fundamental principle of the school as a form of community life. It conceives the school as a place where certain information is to be given, where certain lessons are to be learned, or where certain habits are to be formed”
How often have we debated here as to the question of whether school,should be the focus of the community. Here Dewey seems to be suggesting that his observations of school during his day suggest a lack of community involvement. He further suggests the vacuous nature of the school which narrowly defines it mission as “certain lessons” and “certain habits” that the school transfers to the student. His ideas are a savage indictment of the post-Bloom idea of delineating precisely what you are teaching in an explicit format.
It is time we admitted that ideas are amorphous collections of a common mentality, that and nothing more. It is time we embrace the catfish that is ideas, the slippery linguistic that is hard to define. We have to reach for ideas, we want them to be simple, but we cannot attain this goal. So we must admit this.
In school this looks like this: 1) Prepare students to think as much as you can. 2) Help students understand how political process is the vital link to their own lives. 3) provide as much historical background as you can to the student who is just coming to understand why he thinks like he does. 4) Provide the basis for further learning, be it an understanding of technical training that will land employment, or an enjoyment of fine literature or music that will enrich the life throughout it.
Whenever we find ourselves having to make a crucial decision in our classrooms, or with our own children, let’s ask “what would John Dewey do?” WWJDD… or Gardner, Piaget, Vygotsky, Glasser, Malaguzzi, etc…
I received constant doses of these guys during my undergrad and masters programs. As did the hundreds of other prospective teachers who graduated with me from state universities. As did the hundreds who graduated each year before us, and after us. I think universities are keeping theory alive. But, where does it all go once we find ourselves with a teaching position? As I mentioned earlier, citing theory to defend a teaching practice is a sure way to lose favor with other adults working in a school house, including teachers. The more Dewey you read, the more apparent it is, this sort of thing is not unique to today’s schools.
Of course. Dewey did NOT write a curriculum like the Gates crap. His was a philosophy.
We have a philosopher at Oped News that I would share with you, today.
Today, john Mitteldorf gives us a great philosophy for life —paraphrased Desiderata :
”
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But culture an expectation of warm connections and serendipitous good will. Remind yourself that most fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
“Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; surely you deserve sympathy and forgiveness as well as those you love best.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Her to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world, and you may laugh in good conscience.”
— Desiderata by Max Ehrmann, edited JJM. https://www.opednews.com/articles/Daily-Inspiration-mdash–by-Josh-Mitteldorf-Inspirational-171231-603.html
My favorite passages:
“The child’s own instincts and powers furnish the material and give the starting point for all education. Save as the efforts of the educator connect with some activity which the child is carrying on of his own initiative independent of the educator, education becomes reduced to a pressure from without… If it chances to coincide with the child’s activity it will get a leverage; if it does not, it will result in friction, or disintegration, or arrest of the child nature.”
“it is impossible to foretell definitely just what civilization will be twenty years from now. Hence it is impossible to prepare the child for any precise set of conditions. To prepare him for the future life means to give him command of himself; it means so to train him that he will have the full and ready use of all his capacities; that his eye and ear and hand may be tools ready to command, that his judgment may be capable of grasping the conditions under which it has to work, and the executive forces be trained to act economically and efficiently. It is impossible to reach this sort of adjustment save as constant regard is had to the individual’s own powers, tastes, and interests…”
All I can say is YES! Not a damn word about reading foundations, lesson plans and basic math. I have been an educator for 35 years, 11 as a principal. School is all about community. It is the forgotten cannon of education. If there is one thing the “standards movement” has shown, it is that forgetting this puts a profound burden on our families and our children. The real standard should be living and learning through experience. How do we get there? We must get there!
Indeed. So many tenets of far-right & libertarian creed– those that have been activated by law or dereg or defunding enforcement of existing law– have had the effect of splintering community. It’s literal in areas where school choice is rampant, cutting nbhd ties, pta, local school board effect, dividing nyc sch bldgs into entities competing for once-common areas, undermining teacher voice, parent voice, taxpayer voice. We see it elsewhere in union-busting, privatization, new voter ID reqts, extreme gerrymandering. Our govt was built on a pyramidal design w/community govt forming the base. Interfering w/the ability for communities to work together – to communicate, find common goals & work together – disintegrates democracy.
The oligarchs who rule the US cabal will eradocate everything that was created FOR THE COMMON GOOD, when government worked to support the people. Education is their first target. Workers benefits is their second. No one voted last November to cut our earned benefits! Yet that is exactly what Republicans disastrous tax plan does; it triggers $400 billion in automatic cuts to Medicare― just is the first step.
The will reduce the people to mere serfs, who toil so that the gilded elites have everything… and even the is not enough, for then, they see POWER TO IMPRESS EACH OTHER.
Giant economic forces, things like globalization or automation or the housing crisis, have been described to us as out of our control, but each one has been accelerated and exacerbated by deliberate political decisions of our legislators in the pockets of these “gilded beings.’
Robert Reich says: https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/posts/1787760044569917 December 6
“Make no mistake. The oligarchs (Koch brothers, Mercers, Wilks, Waltons, Deasons, Schwabs, Neugebauers, Murdochs, Griffins, Ricketts, etc.) are now in charge of the U.S. government. The views of most Americans (75 percent of whom are against the tax cut, for example) no longer matter.”
“This was the oligarch’s deal with the devil (Trump) from the start: Get us a huge tax cut, use the resulting deficit to justify cutting Medicare and Social Security, and get rid of environmental and financial regulations. In return, we’ll finance you, we’ll back your allies in the GOP, and we’ll mount PR campaigns on your behalf that magnify your lies. Hell, we’ll even make you look like a populist.”
“Over half the money contributed in the 2016 came from just 158 families, along with the companies they own or control. More than 50 of these people are on the Forbes list of America’s richest billionaires. 64 of them made their fortunes in finance (hedge fund and private equity). 17 in energy, mostly oil and gas. 15 in real estate and construction (the Trumps, for example). 10 in technology.”
“These American oligarchs don’t have to worry about whether Social Security or Medicare will be there for them in their retirement because they’ve put away huge fortunes. They don’t worry about climate change because they don’t live in homes that might succumb to hurricanes or wildfires. They don’t care about public schools because their families don’t attend them. They don’t care about public transportation because they don’t use it. Truth to tell, they don’t even care that much about America, because their personal and financial interests are global.”
“They are living in their own separate society, and they want people who will represent them, not the rest of us.”
“The Republican Party is their vehicle. Fox News is their voice. Trump is their champion.”
I am delighted you quoted Dewey. Some people have said that Dewey was the
best mind America ever produced; he truly was brilliant. Some readers may not realize
that he was a prolific writer. He had 37 volumes of publication which included 29 books,
588 essays and 1079 entries. He ended his career of teaching at Columbia University.