Pieces of John Dewey; 11-26-2019

[I am back working through my prison journal. It is out of order. The date in the title is the date it was written.Well, the order is as I have opened boxes. I hope this is not confusing. What you are reading is what you get for your tax dollars. sch 4/24/2025] 

Some passages I wrenched from today's reading of John Dewey's Democracy and Education (1916; The Free Press/MacMillan Company, 1966), and all I will say about them is to quote Jerry Lee Lewis: "Think about it."

...Democratic society is peculiarly dependent for its maintenance upon the use in forming a course of study of criteria which are broadly human. Democracy cannot flourish where the chief influences in selecting subject matter of instruction are utilitarian ends narrowly conceived for the masses, and, for the higher education of the few, the traditions of a specialized cultivated class. The notion that the "essentials" of elementary education are the three R's mechanically treated, is based upon ignorance of the essentials needed for realization of democratic ideals. Unconsciously it assumes that these ideals are unrealizable; it assumes that in the future, as in the past, getting a livelihood, "making a living," must signify for most men and women doing things which are not significant, freely chosen, and ennobling to those who do them; doing things which serve ends unrecognized by those engaged in them, carried on under the direction of others for the sake of pecuniary reward. For preparation of large numbers for a life of this sort, and only for this purpose, are mechanical efficiency in reading, writing, spelling and figuring, together with attainment of a certain amount of muscular dexterity, "essentials." Such conditions also infect the education called liberal, with illiberality. They imply a somewhat parasitic cultivation bought at the expense of not having the enlightenment and discipline which come from concern with the deepest problems of common humanity. A curriculum which acknowledges the social responsibilities of education must present situations where problems are relevant to the problems of living together, and where observation and information are calculated to develop social insight and interest.

Chapter Fourteen: The Nature of Subject Matter; p. 192

***

...Recreation, as the word indicates, is recuperation of energy. No demand of human nature is more urgent or less to be escaped. The idea that the need can be suppressed is absolutely fallacious, and the Puritanic tradition which disallows the need has entailed an enormous crop of evils. If education does not afford opportunity for wholesome recreation and train capacity for seeking and finding it, the suppressed instincts find all sorts of illicit outlets, sometimes overt, sometimes confined to indulgence of the imagination. Education has no more serious responsibility than making adequate provision for enjoyment of recreative leisure; not only for the sake of immediate health, but still more if possible for the sake of its lasting effect upon habits of mind. Art is again the answer to this demand.

***

...Intelligent insight into present forms of associated life is necessary for a character whose morality is more than colorless innocence. Historical knowledge helps provide such insight. It is an organ for analysis of the warp and woof of the present social fabric, of making known the forces which have woven the pattern. The use of history for cultivating a socialized intelligence constitutes its moral significance. It is possible to employ it as a kind of reservoir of anecdotes to be drawn on to inculcate special moral lessons on this virtue or that vice. But such teaching is not so much an ethical use of history as it is an effort to create moral impressions by means of more or less authentic material. At best, it produces a temporary emotional glow; at worst, callous indifference to moralizing. The assistance which may be given by history to a more intelligent sympathetic understanding of the social situations of the present in which individuals share is a permanent and constructive moral asset.

 Chapter Sixteen: The Significance of Geography and History; p. 217

***

...Knowledge is humanistic in quality not because it is about human products in the past, but because of what it does in liberating human intelligence and human sympathy. Any subject matter which accomplishes this result is humane, and any subject matter which does not accomplish it is not even educational.

Chapter Seventeen: Science in the Course of Study; p. 230

***

...There are adequate grounds for asserting that the premium so often put in schools upon external "discipline," and upon marks and rewards, upon promotion and keeping back, are the obverse of the lack of attention given to life situations in which the meaning of facts, ideas, principles, and problems is vitally brought home.

Chapter Eighteen: Educational Values; pp. 235 -36

***

...Sometimes it appears to be a labored effort to furnish an apologetic for topics which no longer operate to any purpose, direct or indirect, in the lives of pupils. At other times, the reaction against useless lumber seems to have gone to the extent of supposing that no subject or topic should be taught unless some quite definite future utility can be pointed out by those making the course of study or by the pupil himself, unmindful of the fact that life is its own excuse for being; and that definite utilities which can be pointed out are themselves justified only because they increase the experienced content of life itself....

 Chapter Eighteen; p. 243

sch 

[4/25/2025: Indiana Republicans take aim at public universities with last minute budget additions (Axios Indianapolis) reads as an attack on democratic education; controlling what people learn and know for gain and maintenance of political power instead of educating citizens regardless of partisan politics:

State of play: Provisions eroding tenure and shared governance — the concept by which governing boards, administrators and faculty members share responsibility for decision-making at higher education institutions —  were added to the 215-page bill 24 hours before it was set to be voted on by the Indiana General Assembly.

• The bill requires "tenured faculty member productivity reviews," which creates pathways to dismissal for tenured faculty members that don't meet productivity requirements set by the institution's governing board.
• It requires faculty to post a syllabus online for each course taught.

Threat level: "It runs the risk of not just eroding tenure but destroying it," said Mark Criley, senior program officer in the department of academic freedom, tenure and governance with the AAUP.

Another provision asserts that actions taken by faculty governance organizations, such as faculty councils and senates, are advisory only.

• Those groups traditionally make decisions around hiring and promotion processes, curricula and other academic issues.

The latest: The budget bill passed the House, 66-27, and the Senate, 39-11, a little after midnight.

What they're saying: Democrats were critical of the language and the way it was introduced outside the usual legislative process.

• "For provisions of this magnitude to come up with no notice, no opportunity for public hearing, in a budget bill, which everybody knows is a must pass bill ... it's an outrage," said Rep. Matt Pierce, D-Bloomington. "They've calculated an end-run around the public to get these provisions in."
• The House's budget writer, Rep. Jeff Thompson, R-Lizton, said the language was added because universities, like all of state government, needs to get more efficient. They're taking a 5% budget cut during the next two years.

 Efficiency in education as if schools were factories?

sch]