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| Verdun, the aftermath |
From that history of mire and blood, it’s good to be able to
report another anniversary – the centenary of a great work of humanist
scholarship. 1916 also saw the
publication of Democracy and Education
by John Dewey, once a high school teacher, at the time professor of philosophy
at Teachers College, Columbia University, in New York.
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| Dewey, when not yet a Grand Old Man |
It’s a chunky book in maroon hard covers (I have a copy of
the 32nd printing, from 1960), originally published in a textbook
series. It’s subtitled An Introduction to the Philosophy of
Education, and much of it dutifully expounds textbook themes: theories of
knowledge, school subjects from History to Science, educational aims and values,
the nature of philosophy, etc.
But woven through that is an extraordinary vision of what
education could be, as the expression of a democratic society. Dewey gives a sophisticated critique of
the authoritarian pedagogy normal in schools at the time, and a hard-headed
account of what a democratic outlook means in the practical life of schools. These are the ideas that made the book
an inspiration to generations of teachers, and the bible of the progressive
education movement. It’s still
worth reading a hundred years later -
and you can’t say that of many textbooks!
If you never read any other part, read the chapter
“Vocational Aspects of Education”.
The title sounds monumentally boring. In fact it’s a brilliant short account of social change and
alienation in industrial capitalism, and the role of education in reproducing,
and also contesting, inequality.
Dewey could do this not just because he had a short unhappy
experience as a school teacher, but also because he had been a very active
academic psychologist and philosopher (the two trades weren’t sharply
distinguished then) with a practical interest in teacher training and
educational experiment.
In his second academic job he had been the key figure in
setting up the famous Laboratory Schools at the University of Chicago. Soon after publishing Democracy and Education he was one of
the bunch of dangerous radicals who set up the New School for Social Research,
an experimental university in New York. (Both are still running, though they
have become less experimental.)
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| Dewey, when he was |
I find it hard to get bearings on Dewey. He was a socialist of sorts, certainly
a radical critic of Gilded-Age capitalism. He became a unionist, a member of the American Federation of
Teachers. But he left the public
sector University of Michigan for the the new-rich University of Chicago, set
up by Rockefeller money. He then
went to the Ivy-League fortress of Columbia University. Well, many academics have
contradictions in their lives, who am I to talk? I’m happy to celebrate the fact that out of the tensions of
Dewey’s life came this great inspiration to good education.
