Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education

“Hence one of the weightiest problems with which the philosophy of education has to cope is the method of keeping a proper balance between the informal and the formal, the incidental and the intentional, modes of education.”

Throughout this book, Dewey argues against binaries and artificial oppositions of any kind. Here, he suggests that one of the key goals of education is to ensure that it comprises different aspects without compartmentalizing them.

“We conclude, accordingly, that the use of language to convey and acquire ideas is an extension and refinement of the principle that things gain meaning by being used in a shared experience or joint action; in no sense does it contravene that principle.”

For Dewey, education must have an interactive component with the outside world and society. And it is language that is the basis of communication and communal life.

“To have the same ideas about things which others have, to be like-minded with them, and thus to be really members of a social group, is therefore to attach the same meanings to things and to acts which others attach. Otherwise, there is no common understanding, and no community life.”

According to Dewey, the social aspect is integral part of optimal education. A student’s daily life and their communal interactions provide the types of experiences that make education relevant. Dewey also examines what it means to be part of a community or society at large. In part, it is to share meanings and a common understanding of the world around us.

“From a social standpoint, dependence denotes a power rather than a weakness; it involves interdependence.”

Conventionally, dependence is perceived as a weakness and independence is perceived as a strength. Dewey argues, however, that in the context of society generally and parent-child interactions specifically, interdependence is positive concept because it strengthens bonds, communication, and the sharing of ideas.

“Isolation of subject matter from a social context is the chief obstruction in current practice to securing a general training of mind. Literature, art, religion, when thus dissociated, are just as narrowing as the technical things which the professional upholders of general education strenuously oppose.”

One of the main themes for Dewey is the relationship between education and its environment, especially an environment’s social aspects. Because of this, he argues against compartmentalizing schooling and separating it from the outside world. A general training of the mind refers to developing critical thinking skills and attaining true individuality within a shared communal context.

“We thus reach a technical definition of education: It is that reconstruction or reorganization of experience which adds to the meaning of experience, and which increases ability to direct the course of subsequent experience.”

In Dewey’s view, an experience is not simply something that happens. Dewey links the term “experience” with “experiment.” In this scenario, an experience is a combination of an active component (acting upon something) and a passive component (undergoing the consequences of one’s actions and learning from them). Experiences are one of the key aspects of Dewey’s education theory. Education should reconstruct and thereby enhance experiences so that students could learn from them.

“A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience. The extension in space of the number of individuals who participate in an interest so that each has to refer his own action to that of others, and to consider the action of others to give point and direction to his own, is equivalent to the breaking down of those barriers of class, race, and national territory which kept men from perceiving the full import of their activity.”

Dewey argues that optimal education only arises in democracies. However, democracies are not simply representative forms of government, but rather a way of living with an emphasis on positive, communal (social) interactions and the sharing of ideas which also serve as a source of learning.

“To identify acting with an aim and intelligent activity is enough to show its value–its function in experience.”

In Dewey’s view, education must have an aim. Yet an aim is not simply a finalized end goal but a part of a process. An aim must link education with the real world through experience.

“In conclusion, we note that the early history of the idea of following nature combined two factors which had no inherent connection with one another. Before the time of Rousseau educational reformers had been inclined to urge the importance of education by ascribing practically unlimited power to it. All the differences between peoples and between classes and persons among the same people were said to be due to differences of training, of exercise, and practice. Originally, mind, reason, understanding is, for all practical purposes, the same in all. This essential identity of mind means the essential equality of all and the possibility of bringing them all to the same level.”

Dewey spends a portion of this book on identifying the sources of key pedagogical concepts of his time. Here, he returns to the era of Enlightenment philosophers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He argues that Rousseau and his followers had an accurate hunch about education being too formal and disconnected from the real world. As a result, Rousseau focused on nature, though Dewey thinks he went too far. Before Rousseau, educators believed in the unlimited power of education regardless of one’s unique abilities and circumstances.

“The problem of instruction is thus that of finding material which will engage a person in specific activities having an aim or purpose of moment or interest to him, and dealing with things not as gymnastic appliances but as conditions for the attainment of ends. The remedy for the evils attending the doctrine of formal discipline previously spoken of, is not to be found by substituting a doctrine of specialized disciplines, but by reforming the notion of mind and its training.”

One of the key problems (“evils”) with education is its isolation of the mind from the senses, the physical world, and social interactions—and turning education into a purely intellectual pursuit. In contrast, Dewey consistently stresses the necessity of combining formal education with experiences in the physical world and society. Having an interest in the subject matter and balancing each student’s unique needs with the general requirements of education are other important factors.

“Systematic advance in invention and discovery began when men recognized that they could utilize doubt for purposes of inquiry by forming conjectures to guide action in tentative explorations, whose development would confirm, refute, or modify the guiding conjecture.”

Dewey’s ideal education model features a significant level of integration not only between the school and the outside world (e.g., the physical world, society) but also between the disciplines highlighting their connections. He recognizes that reforming schools in this way will require time and effort. At the same time, he argues that teachers may pursue these desirable changes that are within their power to improve the student experience.

“While it is desirable that all educational institutions should be equipped so as to give students an opportunity for acquiring and testing ideas and information in active pursuits typifying important social situations, it will, doubtless, be a long time before all of them are thus furnished. But this state of affairs does not afford instructors an excuse for folding their hands and persisting in methods which segregate school knowledge.”

Dewey’s ideal education model features a significant level of integration not only between the school and the outside world (e.g., the physical world, society) but also between the disciplines highlighting their connections. He recognizes that reforming schools in this way will require time and effort. At the same time, he argues that teachers may pursue these desirable changes that are within their power to improve the student experience.

“Some attitudes may be named, however,—which are central in effective intellectual ways of dealing with subject matter. Among the most important are directness, open-mindedness, single-mindedness (or whole-heartedness), and responsibility.”

Dewey’s book is not a teaching manual, but he does offer some specific suggestions to teachers, caregivers, and students throughout. Here, he lists some of the general traits that the education system should foster. The same traits would find usefulness outside the school in general social interactions thereby highlighting the link between education and society.

“A knowledge of the ideas which have been achieved in the past as the outcome of activity places the educator in a position to perceive the meaning of the seeming impulsive and aimless reactions of the young, and to provide the stimuli needed to direct them so that they will amount to something. The more the educator knows of music the more he can perceive the possibilities of the inchoate musical impulses of a child.”

This segment is another practical example of an ideal interaction between teacher and student. Dewey views teachers as guides who should not only be knowledgeable in their field but also be cognizant of each student’s individual needs. This example shows that Dewey believes that teachers should gently guide students in an appropriate direction so that the students could be as self-sufficient as possible. He is critical of such teachers who expect students to deliver the material back to them by using the teacher’s own interpretation of it—or worse yet, pure memorization and regurgitation of the material without absorbing and understanding it.

“The problem of the educator is to engage pupils in these activities in such ways that while manual skill and technical efficiency are gained and immediate satisfaction found in the work, together with preparation for later usefulness, these things shall be subordinated to education–that is, to intellectual results and the forming of a socialized disposition.”

Dewey proposes an integrated model of education in which intellectual pursuits are combined with active counterparts and linked to the physical world and society. However, here he suggests arranging these different modes of learning in a hierarchy in which intellectual pursuits and character-building take precedence over physically and technically oriented activities.

“So history as a formulated study is but the body of known facts about the activities and sufferings of the social groups with which our own lives are continuous, and through reference to which our own customs and institutions are illuminated.”

Dewey dedicates separate chapters to the study of history and geography and science, respectively. He also argues against the rivalry between the disciplines of humanities and sciences. Here, Dewey is discussing the study of history, its different types, and its relevance. One way to make history socially relevant is to perceive it as a continuous process and to foster empathy for the plight of people who came before us.

“Science, in short, signifies a realization of the logical implications of any knowledge. Logical order is not a form imposed upon what is known; it is the proper form of knowledge as perfected.”

Dewey considers modern science to be an objective form of knowledge in part because it relies on the scientific method. The scientific method involves hypotheses, observations, and experimentation to accept, negate, or adjust the hypothesis. These aspects of the scientific method in terms of examining and interpreting information are applicable outside the field of hard sciences.

“Certain conclusions follow with respect to educational values. We cannot establish a hierarchy of values among studies. It is futile to attempt to arrange them in an order, beginning with one having least worth and going on to that of maximum value. In so far as any study has a unique or irreplaceable function in experience, in so far as it marks a characteristic enrichment of life, its worth is intrinsic or incomparable.”

In Dewey’s view, education should account for each individual student’s strengths and needs. Therefore, establishing a value hierarchy would undermine this approach.

“These general considerations are amply borne out by the historical development of educational philosophy. The separation of liberal education from professional and industrial education goes back to the time of the Greeks, and was formulated expressly on the basis of a division of classes into those who had to labor for a living and those who were relieved from this necessity.“

Dewey examines the history of education as it is linked to the developments in the history of Western intellectual tradition as well as the political and socio-economic conditions. He argues that the Athenian society which gave birth to several key philosophers left a tremendous impact not just on subsequent Western thought but also on specific institutions such as the school and the university. At the same time, Athenian society was strictly divided into classes, and the ruling classes did not participate in physical labor and related tasks. They would have studied fields like philosophy and rhetoric but would not have received vocational training. Thus, these socioeconomic divisions found their way into the subsequent development of academic institutions in Europe, North America, and beyond.

“The notion that knowledge is derived from a higher source than is practical activity, and possesses a higher and more spiritual worth, has a long history.”

Dewey advocates for a holistic approach to education comprised of formal studies, active pursuits, and fostering a relationship with the external environment. This approach is more integrated than the education system of his time which prioritized and compartmentalized formal studies. Dewey investigates the roots of this compartmentalization and identifies historic precedents going back to ancient Greece.

“The utilization of ordinary experience to secure an advance into scientific material and method, while keeping the latter connected with familiar human interests, is easier to-day than it ever was before. The usual experience of all persons in civilized communities to-day is intimately associated with industrial processes and results. These in turn are so many cases of science in action.”

Democracy and Education emphasizes the need of linking formal school studies with the real world: both the physical environment and one’s community and society at large. Here, Dewey suggests that the scope and scale of manufacturing after the Industrial Revolution allows students to view the tangible results of applied science and their usefulness.

“Individuality as a factor to be respected in education has a double meaning. In the first place, one is mentally an individual only as he has his own purpose and problem, and does his own thinking.”

Dewey examines the role of the individual and social groups throughout Democracy and Education. In this context, he argues that a true individual is a person capable of independent critical thinking (rather than one isolated from society).

“This direct and intimate connection of philosophy with an outlook upon life obviously differentiates philosophy from science. Particular facts and laws of science evidently influence conduct. They suggest things to do and not do, and provide means of execution. When science denotes not simply a report of the particular facts discovered about the world but a general attitude toward it–as distinct from special things to do–it merges into philosophy.”

Dewey examines the development of science and philosophy, respectively, and the impact that they had on pedagogy as a discipline and education as its applied form. Here, he distinguishes between science from philosophy in which the latter is broader and more encompassing.