Democracy+and+Education+Chapter+12

__//Summary://__** (sec 14 group 5)
 * Democracy and Education Chapter 12
 * Chapter 12**

Thinking in Education

1. The essentials of Method The school experience should teach students “to develop their ability to think.” Thinking is the basis for learning. The method of thinking is what makes a person intelligent.

I. Experience: Experience is an important part of life. It is the physical that leads a person to think, but a person would need to live an experience through all physical human senses. When teaching, a teacher must take into account the level of life experiences his or her pupil has lived through. It’s so easy sometimes to think of how a situation would be like rather than the hardships of enduring it. “[…] give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking, or the intentional nothing of connections; learning naturally results.” (154) Meaning, let the students actually think and learn themselves. Too many kids are just memorizing or learning from only what the teacher says. The student needs to figure out the questions and think of a solution for themselves. It’s a process that teachers need to relay to the students. Get them to think.

“Speaking generally, the fundamental fallacy in methods of instruction lies in supposing that experience on the part of the pupils maybe be assumed.” [153] Teachers experience more than students so it’s important to be mindful of that. There comes a limit with a teacher to what experiences, what situations are kept within or outside the classroom and where the boundary between them both is. Just because a 29+ year old teacher understands what he/she is saying, doesn’t mean their 16 year old student understands.

II. Data:

This section starts off with the difficulty of thinking. There are so many variables that go into data, or the material that is being thought about or figured out. There are experiences you have, you’ve lived through, and in some learned about without ever experiencing it. Some students have an unneeded “cold-storage” of thoughts that will give them nothing in their future. These thoughts that are useless cloud the mind when trying to educate oneself for something useful. It’s the teachers responsibility to have the children retain useful data that they’ll need rather than useless data they’ll never use.

Summary Chapter 12 continued (Bernadette Van Riper)

III. In this portion of the chapter Dewey begins stating the fact that there are inconsistencies in teaching that interfere in the fostering of methods that incorporate intelligent learning. This may cause the child, pupil or adult to become conditioned "to surrender to the mercy of routine habits". (Dewey, p 152) Routine learning of facts, memorization, data that has previously been instilled in the mind brings a standstill to an expansion of individual ideas and perceptions. Dewey explains that purposeful thought will incur creativity and allow opportunities to stimulate the mind towards inventive thinking. For example, placing baking soda, eye droppers, flavored kool aid, vinegar and cups for a child to experiment with will give them the opportunity for independent discovery. A second group can be given the same components only replacing the vinegar with water, In this way children can share and discuss results. Dewey states a profound fact that should be practiced in all learning environments that "the teacher is a learner and without knowing it the learner is a teacher." (p.160) Through this example of the experiment, a chemical reaction takes place when vinegar and baking soda are mixed. One of the new substances formed is carbon dioxide gas. Through this activity children will learn to plan an experiment, predict results, observe events and make observations They are also using their senses and are able to creatively explain what they observed instead of being given witten material from a book. Dewey stresses the importance of children engaging in sharing ideas and learning then becomes purposeful. Dewey states, "that teachers would find their work less of a grind and strain if school conditions favored learning in the sense of discovery and not in that of storing away of what others pour into them". (p.159)

IV. In this portion of the chapter Dewey reminds us of the passivitiy of traditional education and the need for more successful methods of instructions that require more ways for dealing with situations of learning through experience. (p. 160) It is of utmost importance that a classroom environment is a place where each child is acknoweldged as a unique individual whose ideas are given recognition as significant. Dewey also makes an excellent point which ties into the teaching method of drilling types of instruction. (found in second to the last sentence of the second paragraph, p. 161) For example reading a novel in a literature class can foster creative thoughts and critical thinking and also different views that are all recognized as valid means of discussion. In contrast a history course is strictly by the book. For example, the majority of children are taught that Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves, but this is not true case. For our society to interrelate and become truly united we must learn and accept the true facts of history and in this way we can begin to create a a world where there is a better understanding in the struggles of others. Dewey concludes that wiser teachers creates opportunites for pupils to learn systematically in a way that each educational experience flows and connnects to the next not only in the abstract but in real life experiences. "Opportunities exist" and Deweys theories require us to help students engage in many opportunities and take part in as many as we can provide in purposeful ways. (p.163)

I."Hence the first approach to any subject in school, if thought is to be aroused and not words acquired, should be as unscholastic as possible. To realize what an experience, or empirical situation, means, we have to call to mind the sort of situation that presents itself outside of school; the sort of occupations that interest and engage activity in ordinary life. And careful inspection of methods which are permanently successful in formal education, whether in arithmetic or learning to read, or studying geography, or learning physics or a foreign language, will reveal that they depend for their efficiency upon the fact that they go back to the type of the situation which causes reflection out of school in ordinary life. They give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking, or the intentional noting of connections; learning naturally results."
 * __Key Passages:

II. "A well-trained mind is one that has a maximum of resources behind it, so to speak, and that is accustomed to go over its past experiences to see what they yield. On the other hand, a quality or relation of even a familiar object may previously have been passed over, and be just the fact that is helpful in dealing with the question. In this case direct observation is called for."

III."The educational conclusion which follows is that all thinking is original in a projection of considerations which have not been previously apprehended. The child of three who discovers what can be done with blocks, or of six who finds out what he can make by putting five cents and five cents together, is really a discoverer, even though everybody else in the world knows it. There is a genuine increment of experience; not another item mechanically added on, but enrichment by a new quality. The charm which the spontaneity of little children has for sympathetic observers is due to perception of this intellectual originality. The joy which children themselves experience is the joy of intellectual constructiveness -- of creativeness, if the word may be used without misunderstanding."

IV. "However this may be, there can be no doubt that a peculiar artificiality attaches to much of what is learned in schools. It can hardly be said that many students consciously think of the subject matter as unreal; but it assuredly does not possess for them the kind of reality which the subject matter of their vital experiences possesses. They learn not to expect that sort of reality of it; they become habituated to treating it as having reality for the purposes of recitations, lessons, and examinations. That it should remain inert for the experiences of daily life is more or less a matter of course. The bad effects are twofold. Ordinary experience does not receive the enrichment which it should; it is not fertilized by school learning. And the attitudes which spring from getting used to and accepting half-understood and ill-digested material weaken vigor and efficiency of thought."

Important Terminology:__**

Thinking~ to have a conscious mind, to some extent of reasoning, remembering experiences, making rational decisions, etc. "Thinking which is not connected with increase of efficiency in action, and with learning more, about ourselves and the world in which we live, has something the matter with it just as thought." Dewey //(page 152)//

Experience~ a particular instance of personally encountering or undergoing something //"Trying to do something and having the thing perceptibly do something to one in return" Dewey (page 153)//

Data~ individual facts, statistics, or items of information//. "There must be data at command to supply the considerations required in dealing with the specific difficulty which has presented itself." Dewey (Page 156)//

Difficulty~ a trouble or struggle "A difficulty is an indispensible stimulus to thinking, but not all difficulties call out thinking. Sometimes they overwhelm and submerge and discourage." Dewey //(page 157)//

Ideas~ Something, such as a thought or conception, that potentially or actually exists in the mind as a product of mental activity //" The correlate of thinking of facts, data, knowledge already aquired, is suggestions, inferences, conjectured meanings, suppositions, tentative explanations:-ideas, in short. " Dewey (page 158)// "Idease,as we have seen, whether they be humble guesses or dignified theories, are anticipations of possible solutions." Dewey (160)

Application~ the act of putting to a special use or purpose "While the need of application of ideas gained in study is acknowledged by all the more sucessful methods of instruction, the exercises in application are sometimes treated as devices for fixing what has already been learned and for getting greater practical skill in its manipulation." //(page 161)//


 * __//Discussion Guiding Questions:

A.//__ //If we unintenionally learn by experiencing life, is it possible we unintenionally learn by experiencing school and academic work?

B. In what ways can a classroom function without the reliance of experience? Is that possible? Is that beneficial?

C. Would it be beneficial for an educator to rely on/be open to other educators experiences than their own? Could that make a difference in the way an educator conducts an academic atmosphere?

D. If an ordinary experience does not recieve the enrichment it shoud and is not conditioned by school learning, how can we make an ordinary experience become an extra-special or extra-ordinary experience? How can the attitudes of the earner be changed to create an extra-ordinary experience?

E. If educators would be open to different teaching methods to encourge student growth and participation, would this make for a better teacher, student, classroom or enviornment?//**