Prompt 2 - Theorist connection - John Dewey

Here, I will explore the seventh chapter of John Dewey's classic "Democracy in Education."

The chapter is titled "The democratic conception in education" and it is a very dense body of work. Therefore, I will cover only a few specific quotations from this piece of work thoroughly and weave them in with my experience I have had in the classroom. I encourage readers who are more interested in the work to check it out from a public library or purchase it online, because frankly, an entire course could be spent on this theorist and still only skim the surface of what this man has to say.

Let us begin from the very beginning of the chapter with the following passage: "To say that education is a social function, securing direction and development in the immature through their participation in the life of the group to which they belong, is to say in effect that education will vary with the quality of life which prevails in a group. Particularly is it true that a society which not only changes but-which has the ideal of such change as will improve it, will have different standards and methods of education from one which aims simply at the perpetuation of its own customs" (Dewey, 1).

Here, I will return to culture in a classroom. There are ethnic cultures in my classroom, yes this is true, but at some point, I will engender in the entry. First, I'd like to mention that there are both Latino-American and African-American students in my class. Both bring with them a different ethnic heritage, yet our society as lumped them into a labeled category, the category of "minority." Here, in this classroom, that label is turned upside down; white is the minority here. I think that both the Latino and African students have a unique opportunity to connect however, within the commonality of being apart of the same labeled group, with differing cultural heritages. Because my middle school is an inner city school, it also has a different budget than that of a suburban school. Economics is another shared culture within this space and because of that, I think every student in my classroom as the potential to realize "The American Dream." They have the capacity to become aware of their position, and when that happens, they can realize the ideals that Dewey is speaking of. The direction of their lives can change if they come to the realization that they see difference and want difference, rather than the perpetuation isolated poverty.

The second passage which I will examine from Dewey is "the terms society, community, are thus ambiguous. They have both a eulogistic or normative sense, and a descriptive sense; a meaning de jure and a meaning de facto" (Dewey, 2). Dewey I think is making a clear and important point here -- that the term society, community, and I would also add in culture, are ambiguous in nature. They are broad terms that do not really say anything but rather encompass deeper subjects. When I noticed one of the girls in my classroom I am working in fixing her hair, and putting makeup on during class rather than paying attention to instruction, I came to the realization that she is apart of more than one culture. She has an ethnic culture, but she also has a culture as a female. I also noticed how much pressure that the larger society of America has put on the culture of being a woman. The feminist culture has secure, in a large part, the de jure notion of a woman being equal to a man in law. For those unfamiliar with de jure, and de facto, I will define them. De jure is in concordance with the givens of law, while de facto is in concordance with the givens of the way things are. Though I know that women have fought hard and gained many rights equal to that of men, I would argue that the presence of the stereotype in the mass media of "pretty" women, that women are being objectified in a de facto sense. My feeling on this subject is that the presence of such pressure on young women in public school is distorting and stagnating their potential growth.

Lastly, I'd like to cover one more passage from Dewey: "In order to have a large number of values in common, all the members of the group must have an equable opportunity to receive and to take from others. There must be a large variety of shared undertakings and experiences. Otherwise, the influences which educate some into masters, educate others into slaves" (Dewey, 3). On the wall of my teachers classroom are her four principles of pedagogy, which end with participation. Her focus on developing the voices of her students in commendable, because each of the students need to be comfortable with their own voice in order to engage in meaningful narratives with those who are different from themselves. Diversity in a classroom is one thing, and it is one challenge. However, there is yet another challenge beyond that, which is the challenge of getting student who are different from one another "to receive and take from" one another. Everyone deserves an equitable shot, and that shot is taken away if a student never speaks up or raises their hand in class. It is an easy, unconscious trap to fall into, but the stakes here are high. The students that don't speak need to learn to develop their voices, to consider their audiences, and to teach and learn from one another. What one student struggles with, another student may not. These opportunities are special chances that don't come along everyday, and when they arise, they should be taken advantage of. There is only the fear of uncertainty prevailing in the heart of humankind, the uncertainty of not knowing. When the greater degree of diversity is achieved in public schools, so will the degree of the fear of the unknown decrease.