On Fri, 9 Aug 1996, Stephen M. Fishman wrote:
> It is interesting to me that you too are struggling with ways to
> make your own college teaching more Deweyan. You say that perhaps the most
> Deweyan apporach is lecture followed by discussion (and I believe Phil Eddy
> agrees with you). It would help me to know wchih essays or passages in
> Dewey which leads you to this sort of conclusion.
What a challenge! I can't immediately cite chapter and verse in
response; however, I can say what I consider to be the most crucial
aspects of Dewey's educational theory, and the ways in which the
lecture/discussion format meets these. Keep in mind that I teach
undergraduate education majors in a required course, History and
Philosophy of Education. If I could, I might change the way this
required course is situated in the students' larger program, but I can't
change that, so I accept the constraint of 25 students per class, most of
whom are there because the state mandates them to be there in order to
become teachers. At least I know that they all want to be teachers.
Here are the ways in which I try to implement some of Dewey's principles
within a largely lecture/discussion format:
1. participation. Shared inquiry, conducted with the assistance of a
professor well-versed in subject-matter, provides my students with a way
to pursue the tendencies and directions inherent in their interests. My
goal is to get every student "engaged" in the subject-matter at least
once during the semester (I mean truly engaged, without thought of
tangential rewards, but pursuing a topic for its own sake, out of
interest). I largely succeed in this by selecting a wide variety of
readings about a large variety of topics, and by encouraging students to
discuss their own educational experiences and the ways in which those
experiences affect their opinions about certain educational issues.
2. story-telling. Every student in my class is required to tell a story
about thier own educational history, in which they identify one or two
"issues" or "themes" which emerge from that history, and lead a
discussion with the rest of the class about an issue or theme. These
presentations introduce a lot of "personal" perspectives on the content
of the course, which can tend toward the dry and impersonal (like, what
did the Committee of Ten suggest in 1893). In addition, I tell a lot of
stories from my OWN personal experience, which tends to build up a sense
of me as a person, and builds a "relaxed" sense in my classroom which
encourages (I think) others to be candid and personal.
3. listserve. The class listserve allows students to pursue interests
related to the class in a manner which is less constrained by the
syllabus and by the time of the regular class meetings. All kinds of
topics come up, most of them motivated by the students' own interests.
4. Papers. On every paper, I try to get the students to relate the
theory or history in the course materials to their own experiences. This
works especially well when I ask them to consider how their own education
in "virtue" relates to Socrates' or Protagoras' or Dewey's or Buber's
theory of virtue.
5. no right answers. I do not pretend to know the "right" answers to
the questions I pose. Rather, we conduct our discussions as a survey of
possible answers, and then I allow every student to form their own judgment.
6. obstacles. I believe Dewey's idea that "discipline" emerges from the
meeting and overcoming of obstacles. Therefore I make the course
requirements varied, so that students will find SOMEthing challenging
during the term. Some students find it hard to do the story-telling;
others find it hard to participate on the listserve; others find the
final exam difficult. I do not apologize for these difficulties, but
make it clear that I want every student to LEARN SOMETHING and feel I've
failed if a student sails through the course without apparent effort.
I will do some thinking about specific passages which can support these
educational techniques. Also, I should just reiterate that my graduate
students (most of whom have been in other fields and have decided to
return to school in order to get certified as teachers) are much more
self-directed than my undergraduates, and I make the course requirements
much more flexible to allow for greater personal control of the
educational process. I DO NOT believe that allowing 19 year olds to
CHOOSE what to read, for example, is a good idea, because I believe that
most 19 year olds DO NOT know what they need in order to grow as future
teachers. But I do not categorically prevent an undergraduate from
approaching me with a specific request for a different set of activities,
and indeed would be happy to see someone (someday) take such a proactive
approach. But their proactivity has, largely, been beaten out of them by
the education they've received up till now.
-Craig
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Craig A. Cunningham
Assistant Professor, Educational Foundations; Northeastern Illinois University
C-Cunningham2 who-is-at neiu.edu http://www.ECNet.net/users/uccunnin/index.html