John Dewey

John Dewey (1859 - 1952), an American psychologist, philosopher, educator, social critic and political activist, is seen by many as one of the most significant contributors to the development of educational thinking in the twentieth century (Giles, Jr. and Eyler, 1994;

Fairfield, 2009; Jackson, 2012; Devendorf, n.d). He is recognised for his contribution to education, especially for arguing for a prominent place for democracy and students’

experience. Dewey is regarded as one of the fiercest critics of traditional education systems, whose views and publications gained popularity with the advent of compulsory education in the West, especially during the late 1800s and the turn and rise of the twentieth century. His earlier writings and work focused more upon school education but the later work and generic application of school education was soon realised across different levels of educational institutions.

4.2.1.1 Dewey and democracy

The first concept that I draw upon from his philosophy is that of ‘democracy’ in education.

At the very end of the nineteenth century, Dewey articulated the misfit between the educational aims and methods of his time and the rapid social, cultural, political and economic changes in society. With the changing social conditions at that time, such as the advent of democracy and industrial conditions, Dewey argued that no one could actually prepare a child for any precise set of conditions to match the pace at which the society was changing. No one knew exactly what conditions the children were going to face in future, say, in the next twenty years of time (Dewey 1897). The best preparation, therefore, he asserted, was not to follow a strict regime of traditional education but to enable children to get command of themselves, to be able to have full ready use of their capacities and capabilities in diverse conditions (Dewey, 1897). One of the ways to prepare children’s

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capacities and capabilities, he proposed, was through the introduction of democracy in education, to mirror the ways in which society was changing and developing. Dewey, therefore, strongly advocated for the inclusion of democracy in education and saw it as a way of government that would enable citizens to enjoy freedom, but in a well organised civilization. For him, democracy was a central ethical imperative in education (Dewey, 1903/1916).

“Democracy means freeing intelligence for independent effectiveness-the emancipation of mind as an individual organ to do its own work. We naturally associate democracy, to be sure, with freedom of action, but freedom of action without freed capacity of thought behind it is only chaos” (Dewey, 1903: 193).

As apparent in the quote above, Dewey argued that if educational establishments ignore the trait of democracy as a spiritual force, which is the freedom of intelligence, both students and teachers are negatively affected. A lack of recognition of democracy, for him, raised a conflict and discrepancy between the relatively undemocratic practices in educational institutions; with the growing expected application of democratic principles in general social life (Dewey, 1903). This misfit, he argued, needed to be addressed by introducing the notions of democracy in education. Democracy, for Dewey, needed to rest on the principles of ethics rather than something technical (Dewey, 1903). These ethical principles, such as removing the authoritarian role of a teacher, he believed, would enable the building of a relationship of responsibility and freedom of mind and discovery between the students and teachers. The teacher, Dewey argued, needed to have the power of initiation and constructive endeavour and students, would then develop their individual mental powers and adequate responsibility for their use (ibid).

Dewey demonstrated his commitment and conception of democracy in his own school (opened to children in 1896 in the University of Michigan, for details, see Phillips, 2014) where the school was regarded as a community of learners. Dewey was equally concerned with developing the minds and activities of both students and teachers (Devendorf, n.d.).

His ideas gained popularity through his publication, ‘Democracy and Education’ (Dewey, 1903/1916), where he reasserted democracy as a way of defining culture.

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4.2.1.2 Dewey and experience driven education

A popular book that extended Dewey’s thoughts on democracy, was ‘School and Society’

(Dewey, 1990). In this book, Dewey argued for democracy to be “born a new generation and education to be its midwife” (Devendorf, n.d.). By this he implied educational institutions to be characterised by engagement with activities that are important for the students in their current and future lives.

Dewey argued for yet another vital educational approach, experience based education, which is the second concept from his educational philosophy that I intend to use in my work. Dewey challenged the authoritarian and pre-ordained knowledge approach of traditional education and argued for the need for experiential education, often known as progressive education. Dewey (1938), therefore, advocated for an activity based education where freedom was given to students, but his approach towards freedom was the one with a caution. Dewey was critical of a “completely free, student-driven education” (Kirschner, et al., 2004: 8) as he believed that students often do not know how to structure their own learning experiences for maximum benefits (Kirschner, et al., 2004). He wanted education to be grounded in real life experiences and proposed that, within educational institutions, students should be provided with opportunities to think for themselves and articulate their thoughts, as an alternative to rote learning (Dewey, 1938).The issue with traditional education, he argued, was adults trying to teach materials that had no basis in learners’ lived experiences. The gap, he argued, between the adult (with mature knowledge and experiences); and the experiences and abilities of young children, is so wide that “the very situation forbids the active participation by pupils in the development of what is taught” (Dewey, 1938: 19). Teaching material that forms part of children’s culture, for example, material drawn from their everyday life experiences and interests; together with critical thinking skill, he asserted, was a far better utilisation of education, against the memorisation of rote knowledge.

It is these two concepts from his philosophy of education, democracy and experience- based education, which I intend to draw upon in my work. I am recontextualising his views for the current education system as Dewey’s philosophy, one must bear in mind, was influenced by the social situations at that time, for example, the two World Wars (Garrison, 2008).

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There were different prevailing issues at that time, such as child labour, and a dire need for the states to create more schools to accommodate children and to enable them to learn skills that they would need to thrive in a non-agrarian society (Devendorf, n.d.). It was also a time when society was going through a period of conflict, contemplating the meaning and application of the concept of democracy in political and social lives.

4.2.1.3 Democracy and experience driven education in contemporary education Dewey’s views on democracy and experience based education can be applied in today’s educational contexts. Both concepts can be seen to be interlinked. The ideals of Dewey’s democracy can be related to more recent work of participatory democracy (for example, Englund, 2000; Freeman, 2013, 2014). Educational institutions, these authors assert, should use such processes which draw upon students’ everyday experiences, thereby reducing the gap between teachers’ abstract knowledge and students’ experiential knowledge. The creation of such situations where students can draw upon their previous knowledge and lived experiences, enable the conditions for active participation in knowledge construction.

The role of the teacher, instead of presenting abstract knowledge to students, is to be aware of and draw upon students’ prior and current experiences when they present facts, concepts and values for critical discussion. Students, therefore, would evaluate different views of arguments and negotiate learning with an openness, taking and accepting decisions mutually, thereby absorbing ways of living and learning together (Englund, 2000; Fielding, 2011).

It is these pedagogical processes that enable the preparation of students for educational experiences and participation within the community of the school and university; and also for a social and work life beyond educational institutions. Experience and democracy, in a true learning situation, therefore, have both lateral and longitudinal dimensions (Hall- Quest, 1998), where reasoning and dialogues are used to educate students. It is these reasoning and social learning approaches, which I explore using another social- constructivist, Lev Vygotsky’s concept of Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), in the next section.

79 4.2.2 Lev Vygotsky

Vygotsky, like Dewey, can also be called one of the founders of the social constructivist perspective, since it was his theory that showed the vital role that culture and social contexts can play in learning. According to Vygotsky (1962, 1986), learners’ social and cultural knowledge evolves through active engagement with physical and social environments. The quality of pedagogical processes develops through interaction between people, and people and objects, within learning contexts. This perspective takes into account the values, norms, culture, traditions, contextual specifics and heritage of society (Nola, 1997). The main role of a teacher, therefore, is to support these ideas by enabling children to participate in collaborative learning activities, where they can draw upon their cultural tools with (more competent) peers and teachers, within safe environments (Vygotsky, 1962). A provision of opportunities for freedom of expression, where both the teacher and the learner can participate actively, share knowledge and develop a common understanding of mutual experiences, is important (Vygotsky, 1962).

One of the best known concepts in Vygotsky’s theory is the ‘Zone of Proximal Development’ (ZPD). Unlike constructivism, which focuses upon the active role that the learner plays in constructing and internalising meaning through discovery learning, with a limited role for the teacher; social constructivism shows the critical importance of the role of a teacher or more knowledgeable other (peer or adult), who actively assists in the learning process. An essential feature in social constructivist learning, according to Vygotsky, is that it creates a ZPD, that is:

“learning awakens as variety of internal developmental processes that are able to operate only when the learner is interacting with people in his environment and in co-operation with his peers. Once these processes are internalised, they become part of the learner’s independent development achievement” (Vygotsky, 1978: 90).

In other words, in social constructivism, mediated social activity is the key to learning (Thompson, 2013). It can however be argued that in this teacher-learner interaction, it is the teacher who organises learner’s activity, starting from a material or concrete form.

Knowledge acquisition and construction originate when the material form of an activity

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transforms into mental forms during the teaching-learning process. New knowledge, therefore, originate in the material form of an action, and only after transformation, in the course of certain interaction between the teacher and the learner (ZPD), they become mental actions (Stetsenko and Arievitch, 1997). So, for higher order learning to occur, learning has to start from a social (interactional) level but then needs to be moved into an individual level, a process often referred in Vygotsky’s theory, as ‘internalisation’ (Vygotsky, 1978).

The unit of analysis for ‘learning’ in such methodologies is therefore individual rather than social. It is however the social aspect of learning that my study intended to look at, making me not to choose the ZPD concept in my conceptualisation and analysis. The insights offered from Vygotsky are however invaluable and provide a comprehensive understanding of learning from a cultural, social as well as individual perspective. The collaborative learning processes, being the focus of my work, made me consider the use of dialogic approaches in contemporary education, which I extend upon in my next section, by using Wegerif’s views on dialogic education.