My last two posts for CogTools have been directly reflective but specific points to which Dewey makes within Democracy and Education. The further I get into the book and begin to pick up a rhythm of his tone and style, the less I find myself wrestling with one specific concept. Rather, I find myself reflecting on education as a whole in the tiniest micro interactions between a student and an instructor and a the largest macro attempts of intervention (whether that be institutional, state, national, etc.) Working in education and reading Dewey is like a high school football team being forced to play the Alabama Crimson Tide. You feel as if you and your team’s weaknesses are getting exposed on both sides of the ball and you’re not entirely sure you want to even play football anymore much less show up for that first practice Monday morning.
Trying to think like Dewey, I find myself asking why is this book giving me these feelings? Why does it make me feel so uncomfortable? My best educated guess is because I’m applying knowledge of Dewey so rapidly it’s getting hard to escape it. The content (or in Dewey-ese “subject matter”) is so personally applicable that it’s impossible for the concepts to NOT be learned and thought about. I’ve been in edtech just long enough to know that the conversation has frequently hovered around broadly solving a “worldwide education crisis.” Obviously, the more I’m entangled into the web of Dewey, the less I feel a solution like that exist if a student can’t apply it to themselves and their prior knowledge/experiences.
My next guess is we don’t like thinking about failure. We would rather brush through it. We don’t want to talk about problems if they don’t have solutions that are easy to grasp. In fact, we would much rather back into the hero’s journey and do the opposite by trying to find problems for solutions we have created (we mask this as a “market opportunity” or “business plan”).
I’ve also come to terms with the fact that I’m going to have to spend more time in Dewey than I would a normal read as it takes more time to recover from the gut punches, but that’s okay. On the other side of Dewey, I see this struggle worth the effort as I see my views significantly being altered (though I can entirely verbalize what that exactly means). No, I’m not walking away with a fundamentally altered vocabulary, though I did at one point attempt to put together a Dewey glossary so I could quickly translate the “aims” “potentiality” and “social efficiency” references, but I don’t think the specific concepts will be as valuable as the broad notions.
So I’ll continue to forge up the Mountain Dewey (you knew there had to be a play on words at one point) though I’m already low on oxygen halfway to the summit. I hope that at the top my wrestle won’t be as strong with my own feelings and I can channel that effort towards applying the knowledge into my action research. Finish strong!
[su_note note_color=”#e7e7e4″]Note: This is the third post in a series of weekly reflections for the CogTools strand. All related posts can be viewed under the CogTools tag.[/su_note]