What Would John Dewey Say Today?

“What Would John Dewey Say Today?”

Monte Joffee, Ed.D.

What would be John Dewey’s take on the state of American education today? Some progressive thinkers mightpicture Dewey advocating to overturn NCLB, downsize accountability movements, decentralizenational standards to fit a curriculum to the needs and interests of individual children, and give more power to frontline classroom teachers and their professional unions.Such conclusions might not be warranted.

Education for Dewey was not an end to itself; it was a means through which civil society could be enhanced and vitalized, the stage upon which American democracy could advance. “Education, in its broadest sense, is the means of this social continuity of life,”he argued (Democracy and Education, 1916; MW 9:5). Dewey would worry about thesocial continuity ofcurrent American civil society fractured by many volatile fault lines: the upwardly mobile vs. the disempowered, bi-coastal vs. heartland values,red vs. blue news sources, etc. Dewey would ponder: “How could today’s educational system lead to a stronger mode of associated living and of more conjoint communicated experience in America?”

The currentturn-of-century angstresulting from a transition from an industrial to post-industrial economy is not so dissimilar from Dewey’s experience watching America move from an agrarian to an industrial culture. Before settling in Chicago and New York, his personal experience of growing up in Burlington VT and finding his first work as a teacher in the boomtown of Oil City PApermitted Dewey to empathize with both rural and urban American society.

“A society which is mobile, which is full of channels for the distribution of a change occurring anywhere, must see to it that its members are educated to personal initiative and adaptability”(Democracy and Education, 131). Dewey lived such a life of initiative and adaptability. Liberalism for him was not a comfortable armchair philosophy. It was a dynamic and courageous attempt to carve a great middle path between the frightening dogmatism of both the left and right of his times. He was a philosopher-in-motion: he challenged, dodged, engaged with new opponents, formed alliances, traveled extensively, and wrote prolifically.

Numerous examples from his own life demonstrate how he personally practiced his brand of fluid and dynamic pragmatism. This could be witnessed at the end of the first year of the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools when he threw out the entire curriculum and determined to start from scratch. In Experience and Education (1938)he dramatically qualified the educational thoughts he had earlier expressed in The School and Society (1900) and The Child and the Curriculum (1902) after witnessing excesses from so-called followers. He was able to adapt his educational ideas to the different cultures of China, the USSR, and Turkey. He sat on the boards of both urban and rural colleges.

Today Dewey would worry about the future of a debt-ridden America with diminishing prospects on the global stage. His aim would be to revitalize thehuman spirit as well as civil society in America. Dewey cautioned about the dangers of “-isms”in education. “In spite of itself, any movement that thinks and acts in terms of an -’ism’becomes so involved in reactions against other -’isms’that it is unwittingly controlled by them. For it then forms its principles by reaction against them instead of by comprehensive constructive survey of actual needs, problems and possibilities.”He might very well issue a call for a ceasefire and grand bargain between traditional and progressive educators for the sake of building toward the more pressing goal of rebuilding a nation.

Facing the possibility of a century of American decline, Dewey might very well concede on the need for national standards and assessments. After all, Dewey was concerned about schools developingin children “habits of order and of industry,”a function that was no longer being conveyed by many families in his day that were no longer based in tight-knit communities. In a time of national crisis the national education system might need common focus, he could argue. To this goal he might also addaccompanying questions such as:“How do we do national standards well?”“How do we avoid associatedharm?”“How do we use them to create a stronger civil society?”“Does the overriding need for standards really have to be held hostage over symbolic and distracting issues such as the teaching of evolution?”

First of all, in an effort to strengthen civil societyDewey might very well call for extremely clear and simplified standards that all, not just experts, could understand and support. When there is a state of crisis that calls for a unity of social forces to create a compelling good, comprehendibletrumpscomprehensive. In particular, as long as standards are not readily comprehendible to parents and the grassroots institutions that support students, the compact of a society dedicated to nurturing children is weakened.

Consider the first domain for sixth grade in the Common Core Standards for Mathematics:

“Students use reasoning about multiplication and division to solve ratio and rate problems about quantities. By viewing equivalent ratios and rates as deriving from, and extending, pairs of rows (or columns) in the multiplication table, and by analyzing simple drawings that indicate the relative size of quantities, students connect their understanding of multiplication and division with ratios and rates. Thus students expand the scope of problems for which they can use multiplication and division to solve problems, and they connect ratios and fractions. Students solve a wide variety of problems involving ratios and rates.”

Needless to say, this is a comprehensive and important mathematical conceptbut it is not readily comprehendible to parents. Even those fullycommitted to coaching their child must feel confused and overwhelmed by such standards. The end result, unfortunately,arethe familiar parent-to-child adages—”Do well in school,”“Do your homework,”“Listen to your teacher”—all well-meaning but begging the question of how parents can directly help their children meet standards. This is the embodiment of disempowerment.

Simple, clear, comprehendible to the point that all parents feel they can work with their children over the dining room table—that is what Dewey would envision. Dewey’s notion of “The Great Community”shimmers brighter whenall people and community groupsthat support academic successknow how to coach and cheer children toward meeting standards. Publishers and website creators will then naturally create helpful resources and politicians will claim that they and only they can lead a community that helps all children succeed academically. This scenario represents one snapshot of the vibrantcivil society envisioned by Dewey.

Set aside for now artificial and arbitrary constructs such as grade-by-grade standards. Perhaps Dewey would suggest that four and only four “bands of competency”in English Language Arts, math, social studies, and science are needed: (1) “Ready-to-Learn,”(2) “Basic Skills,”(3) “Citizenship-Ready,”and (4) “College/Career-Ready.” In the English Language Arts simple and comprehendible standards for these bands of competency might look like this:

A- “Ready-to-Learn”

Description: Knowledge of alphabet, phonemic awareness, and basic sight words; ability to read and respond to Dr. Seuss books.

Target: Early childhood grades

B- “Basic Skills”

Description: Ability to read and respond to Newbery Award books and childhood classics.

Target: Upper elementary grades

C- “Citizenship-Ready”

Description: Ability to read and respond to the content of community newspapers.

Target: Middle school grades

D- “College/Career-Ready”

Description: Ability to read and respond to content at the level of The New York Times (College-Ready) or technical manuals and journals (Career-Ready).

Target: High school grades

Secondly, each of these bands of competency would be accompanied by a fair, reliable, and valid credentialing assessment. Dewey would object to the current high-stakes system of testing that expects every student, each a unique and dynamic learning organism, to demonstrate the mastery of vague and arbitrary standards through questionable instruments on a specified day each year. The long gap between the act of taking the assessment and the day that results are announcedfurther breaks any plausible reflex arc of stimulus and effect. Dewey would also eschew the use of humiliation and fear as tools to prompt students, teachers, or schools to succeed.

Instead,he might agree to a system of “open assessment”which starts with students practicing their mastery of bands of competency at any time through highly predictive web-basedpractice tests. With such on-demand interim assessments parents would immediately be able to gauge how close their children are to demonstrating mastery of a band of competency. When students, parents, and teachers agree that skills are in place, students would have multiple opportunities throughout the targeted years to credential their mastery of a band of competency through a formal assessment. Such a system of open assessment, devoid of mystery and trauma, is not that alien or far-fetched; in essence, it is the stuff ofMotor Vehicle Bureaus, College Boards, and a host of professional certifications.

The third cornerstone of Deweyian national reform would be student-centric learning. In response to his call of“learning by doing,”schools of his time opened gardens, craft shops, gymnasiums, kitchens, and fields modeled after the workplaces and recreation of that day. In contrast, today’s work and fun is largely technology-driven and“learning by doing”should naturally look different. Dewey might very well beintrigued by the proposals of Harvard Business School’s Clayton Christensen. In his work Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (2008),Christensen predicts a disruptive shift away from the prevailing modes of classroom instruction. By 2017, he asserts, 50% of secondary school content instruction will take place through student-centric learning apps designed by students, teachers, publishers, and other educators. Christensen envisions apps that are posted, downloaded, and reviewed on an open marketplace such as those currently servicing Apple and Android mobile devices. Learning apps would compete to meet the unique learning needs and styles of individual students.

“How wonderful!”Dewey might have thought. He prized the social context in which people learn and student-centric learning opens up possibilities for shared accountability. Students, certainly, would take responsibility for finding and completing learning apps that match their learning style. Christensen argues that many students themselves will create apps that leave a trail for others on how to successfully master content. Student learning will become even more efficient and targeted to learning style as apps are reviewed and rated by users. The efforts of publishers who submit learning apps will become aligned to the unique learning needs of students. Learning will take place in school labs, on home computers, and—wherever—on mobile devices. Parents would be empowered to know exactly how their children are doing through ongoing open assessments and can help monitor student-centric learning. Friends, family members, and community groups will all lend helping hands.

How much richer is this shared accountability than current notions, all directed at the poor classroom teacher who prepares students for a high stakes assessment while parents, communities, and teachers of subjects and grades that do not culminate in assessments and support staff such as guidance counselors get free passes? This system does not engender the multiple interdependent fibers of an accountable, “the moving spirit of the group”(Experience and Education, 54; LW 13:33). Sucha spirit of a social arrangement is “vitally social,”“vitally shared,”and “educative to those who participate in it”(Democracy in Education, 5-6; MW 9:8-9).

Most importantly, however, student-centric learning that is aligned to bands of competencies would lead to self-paced and efficient instruction. Dewey may certainly have let Caesar have his due in the form of standards as long as they transcend “utilitarian ends narrowly conceived for the masses” or “the three R’s mechanically treated.” Through student-centric learning participants can meet bands of competency over a flexible range of time, with the full support of their community. Students will learn more quickly and this would free more time for learning that is “significant, freely chosen, and ennobling” (Democracy and Education, 1916; MW 9:200) such as projects, sports, the arts, and community building. Once students are credentialed, even more time could be devoted to such applications of learning. The role of teachers would shift radically from the conveyers of information to coaches who monitor and inspire student-centric learning, construct an “embryonic community”of learners(The School and Society, 49), and then help students apply what they have learned.

A final fourth step of reform is necessary in addition to standards, credentialing, and student-centric learning: changes in the structure of schools to invite more players,creativity and commitment to the task of revitalizing education. The number of players in the educational community has radically diminished since Dewey’s day. According to Howleyet al (2011) the number of school districts in the United States decreased from approximately 120,000 in 1930 to fewer than 14,000 today. Whereas in 1930 there were approximately 262,000 public schools, today there are only 86,000—even as the number of enrolled students has doubled to 50 million. Accompanying the ten-fold increase of average district enrollment and the five-fold expansion of average school size is the loss of community. Each closed school and district represents an abandoned public forum where ideas and policies were once discussed and forged. In particular,the closing of tens of thousands of one-teacher schools and single-school districts has deprived the country of its once powerful symbol of homespun grassroots education.

School boards today, especially in large urban areas and in consolidated rural amalgams, have often lost their connection to community. Too often they have become proxy battlefields for political ideologies. Academicians and frontline school peoplehavelargely ceded their input on policy-makingto state legislators and professional administrators. Each closed channel and shuttered forum represents a loss of voice and community, a worrisome concern from Dewey’s perspective who wrote, “The clear consciousness of a communal life, in all its implications, constitutes the idea of democracy” (The Public and its Problems,149).

There are many places in the country where communal life remains strong and these are probably the locales where students meet standards; radical organizational change in the structure of schooling is not necessary here. Dewey, however, would grieve at communities where there is persistent educational failure and a loss of sustaining hope. The current remedy for schools in such places—lockstep monitoring of classroom instruction, replacing school leaders and staff, and hurling of public scorn—is neither effective nor sustainable.

Although fiscal resources are critical, the engine of solution in such places, according to Dewey, must lie in people who strive to breakthroughseemingly intractable problems. "Philosophy comes into existence when men are confronted with problems and contradictions which common sense and the special sciences are able neither to solve nor resolve (Early Essays, 1882-1898, Kant and the Philosophic Method, 34).Solutions must spring from“a new audacity of imagination”(The Quest for Certainty, 294).The key to unleashing a revitalized public education lies in opening up civil society by involving many more individuals who are committed and willing to work hard and creatively to help students meet credentials regardless of the formidability of the task.

Brick and mortar schools are already competing with emerging schooling structures such as charter schools, small schools, online programs, small learning communities within schools, vouchers, and homeschooling. This process needs to be accelerated at a phenomenal pace in order to create a variety of school structures that can meet the needs of all students. It has to become easier to open educational programs and the barriers to funding and operating them must be lowered.

Such a rapid expansion of choice is already happening in other parts of the world. The Independent School Reform Act of 1992 in Sweden has given all groups the right to start their own publicly funded “free schools” (subject to national standards, equitable access opportunities for all students, and commitment to democratic norms) and approximately 15% of Swedish students now attend such schools. These free schools open and operate with considerably less oversight than American charter schools. Other countries in Scandinavia and, more recently, the United Kingdom, have similar models.

Many examples can also be found in the United States. The Marva Collins Way (1990) and The Marva Collins Story (film, 1981) chronicle how one iconoclastic educator left the local school system and established in her home the private Westside Preparatory School,located in an impoverished Chicago neighborhood. Collins used the Socratic method and classical literature to help local children, including those diagnosed with learning disabilities, to reach the highest academic standards. John Dewey might perhaps ponder: How can we locate and empower many moreMarva Collins’s?