John Dewey and Teaching for the Playground

John Dewey could be one of the most influential people you (and I really) have never heard of.  Take a quick look over his Wikipedia page and you’ll get a small sense of just who this guy was.  In a nutshell, he’s a pretty prolific educational reformer (among other interests) of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.  He wrote exhaustively about education and his beliefs, many of which disagreed with famous philosophers such as Rousseau and Plato.  Needless to say this is a pretty influential guy that people still hold in high regard and are still trying to determine if and how we could implement some of his thoughts into today’s American classrooms.

For class this week we read through his Pedagogic Creed which just one example of his overarching teaching philosophy and it is where he makes the claim that school is a “social institution” where experience should play a key role in learning.  Ultimately the core of Dewey’s beliefs construct this idea of “communities of learning” that should be present in every classroom and school.  I like a lot of what Dewey believed in, and he was definitely ahead of the curve in terms of ideas for educational reform at the time.  He wanted to move away from the stereotypical vision of teachers standing in front of the room and lecturing for hours and wanted a classroom to be more student-centered, but the concepts should be scaffolded by the teacher.  Dewey didn’t like a boring classroom and neither do I, so I think we’re on a similar page overall.

Yet, the idea I was struck by most and one I’ve seen mentioned briefly in the blogs of my fellow teaching interns stems from this quote:

“I believe that the school must represent present life - life as real and vital to the child as that which he carries on in the home, in the neighborhood, or on the play-ground.”

I like this quote so much because I think it truly speaks to this idea I’ve been contemplating lately through my other classes and readings: teachers should aim to educate the whole student, both academically and socially, instead of just solely overwhelming them with knowledge of our subject areas.  

School is a social institute in this way, where kids learn about so much more than their required subjects: they learn about rejection, failure, accomplishments, relationships with friends/boyfriends/girlfriends/family and a whole myriad of life and academic transitions that happen in the span of middle to high school.  Whatever we end up teaching we should find some way to be applicable to the home, neighborhood and playground since that is where our students will be at in their lives when we see them.  Our students are growing up in increasingly diverse communities and they need to be prepared for the variety of things that occur in life.  We as teachers-in-training need to find a balance within our instructional practices that accounts for both academic and social/cultural influences our students are living.  We can then hope that these skills and lessons will then be carried on with them throughout life in a positive and beneficial way.

Looking forward to the next post!

Kelsey