Dewey and Moses

Mike Cole (mcole who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu)
Thu, 22 Feb 1996 09:20:38 -0800 (PST)

No, not that Moses. The following seems like it might be of interest.
mike
Sender: The DEWEY-L list <DEWEY-L who-is-at POSTOFFICE.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
A week or so ago there was a brief discussion of Dewey and the SDS. The
following involves the 60s civil rights movement, SNCC in particular [not
SDS], and Bob Moses algebra project in contemporary Mississippi and
elsewhere. You education types will know all about this probably but others
of you might not. In the current issue of *The Nation* (Bell Gale Chevigny,
"Mississippi Learning: Algebra as Political Currriculum", March 4) describes
this project, its successes , difficulties, and overall goals. I bring it
to the Dewey list mainly because of the following quotations which
illustrates the relationship of Dewey to the idea of participation,
education, and democracy -- the central theme of the new left and the 60s --
and his possible influence on the latter. No doubt it represents the 60s at
its best -- few would argue who know the period at all -- that Bob Moses
captured its spirit as almost no one else did or could.

"The Algegra Project was born in 1982 when Moses, then a Harvard philosophy
of mathematics graduate student, immersed himself in his children's school,
the King Open School in Cambridge, Mass. There he found black students
tracked into below-grade-level math. Using his MacArthur fellowship and
drawing on Dewey and Piaget, he developed at King materials and a pedagogy
for math literacy. 'Unique to the project is getting kids to do 'feature
talk' as a bridge to the abstract representation of the textbooks,' Moses
says. 'The idea, familiar to math philosophers, is put on the table for
these children, who then construct math for themselves.'"

The piece goes on to discuss the success of this program and the efforts to
transfer it elsewhere, especially the Mississippi Delta.

"With colleagues in other fields using the Algebra Project's learning
process as a model, Moss [a math teacher working in the project in Laurel,
Mississippi] is working up an 'interdisciplinary rivers' program and a
schoolwide exploration of the blues. 'As Bob put it, instead of 'knowing
about,' they have to 'know'' Acton [the principal at the Middle School in
Laurel] explains; he invokes John Dewey, who inspired many sixties activists
in the education reform movement: 'They become scientists and historians in
class.'"

An interesting article a hopeful project.

Bill Harrell