Democracy+and+Education+Chapter+10


 * Return to Reading Response**


 * Democracy and Education Chapter 10**

For an activity to be purposeful, the pursuant must have both interest in and discipline to focus on said activity. Also, activity in and of itself implies a continuum of cumulative phases beginning with the idea of an activity and graduating with the fruition of the activity’s product, tangible or intangible as it may be. Will is thought to be the determining factor in successfully enduring purposeful activity. The process of learning and experiencing in purposeful activity are interrelated. There is a profound and distinct correlation between the “subject matter of learning” and all of the “objects, ideas and principles which enter as resources or obstacles into the continuous intentional pursuit of a course of action”, as Dewey describes. The more we engage in purposeful activity, the more purposeful activity will become.
 * Summary:**

"If a man sees a carriage coming which may run over him, if he cannot stop its movement, he can at least get out of the way if he foresees the consequence in time. The attitude of a participant in the course of affairs is this a double one: there is solicitude, anxiety concerning future consequences, and a tendency to act to assure better, and avert worse consequences."
 * Key Passages:**
 * __pg 124-125__**

__**pg 125**__ “Life activities flourish and fail only in connection with changes of the environment. They are literally bound up with these changes; our desires, emotions, and affections are but various ways in which our doings are tied up with the doings of things and persons about us.”

__**pg 126**__ “To be interested is to be absorbed in, wrapped up in, carried away by, some object. To take an interest is to be on the alert, to care about, to be attentive. We say of an interested person both that he as lost himself in some affair and that he has found himself in it. Both terms express the engrossment of the self in an object.”

“It is to discover objects and modes of action, which are connected with present powers. The function of this material in engaging activity and carrying it on consistently and continuously //is// its interest. If the material operates in this way, there is no call either to hunt for devices which will make it interesting or to appeal to arbitrary, semi-coerced effort.”
 * __pg 127__**

“When material has to be made interesting, it signifies that as presented, it lacks connection with purposes and present power: or that if the connection be there, it is not perceived. To make it interesting by leading one to realize the connection that exists is simply good sense: to make it interesting by extraneous and artificial inducements deserves all the bad names which have been applied to the doctrine of interest in education.”
 * __pg 127__**

__**pg 127-128**__ “Where an activity takes time, where many means and obstacles lie between its initiation and completion, deliberation and persistence are required… A man of strong will, in the popular usage of the words, is a man who is neither fickle nor half-hearted in achieving chosen ends. His ability is executive; that is, he persistently and energetically strives to execute or carry out his aims. A weak will is unstable as water.”

__**pg 128**__ “The really executive man is a man who ponders his ends, who makes his ideas of the results of his actions as clear and full as possible. The people we called weak-willed or self-indulgent always deceive themselves as to the consequences of their acts. They pick out some feature which agreeable and neglect all attendant circumstances. When they begin to act, the disagreeable results they ignored begin to show themselves. They are discouraged, or complain of being thwarted in their good purpose by a hard fate, and shift to some other line of action.”

“Discipline is positive. To cow the spirit, to subdue inclination, to compel obedience, to mortify the flesh, to make a subordinate perform an uncongenial task-these tend to the development of power to recognize what one is about and to persistence in accomplishment.”
 * __pg 129__**

“One who recognizes the importance of interest will not assume that all minds work in the same way because they happen to have the same teacher and textbook.”
 * __pg 130__**

“You are engaged in a certain occupation, say writing with a typewriter. If you are an expert, you formed habits take care of the physical movements and leave your thoughts free to consider you topic. Suppose, however, you are not skilled, or that, even if you are, the machine does not work well. You then have to use intelligence. You do not wish to strike the keys at random and let the consequences be what they may; you wish to record certain words in a given order so as to make sense. You attend to the keys, to what you have written, to your movements, to the ribbon or the mechanism of the machine. Your attention is not distributed indifferently and miscellaneously to any and every detail. It is centered upon whatever has a bearing upon the effective pursuit of your occupation. Your look is ahead, and you are concerned to note the existing facts because and in so far as they are factors in the achievement of the result intended.”
 * __pg 131__**

“Intelligence is not a peculiar possession which a person owns; but a person is intelligent in so far as the activities in which he plays a part have the qualities mentioned. Nor are the activities in which a person engages, whether intelligently or not, exclusive properties of himself; they are something in which he //engages and partakes//.”
 * __pg 132__**

“The problem of instruction is thus that of finding material which will engage a person in specific activities having an aim or purpose of moment or interest to him, and dealing with things not as gymnastic appliances but as conditions for the attainment of ends.”
 * __pg 132__**

“Even when discipline did not accrue as matter of fact, when the pupil even grew in laxity of application and lost power of intelligent self-direction, the fault lay with him, not with the study or the methods of teaching. His failure was but proof that he needed more discipline, and thus afforded a reason for retaining the old methods.”
 * __pg 133__**

“Many of our existing social activities, industrial and political, fall in these two classes. Neither the people who engage in them, nor those who are directly affected by them, are capable of full and free interest in their work. Because of the lack of any purpose in the work for the one doing it, or because of the restricted character of its aim, intelligence is not adequately engaged.”
 * __pg 135__**

“But this is not a reason for nominally accepting one educational philosophy and accommodating ourselves in practice to another. It is a challenge to undertake the task of reorganization courageously and to keep at it persistently.”
 * __pg 137__**


 * Important Terminology:**
 * __Interest-__** When a person actively engages him or herself in an activity to develop an aim, or result. One is aware of the effects and possibilities of the objects involved. According to Dewey, the objective result is intellectual, and the personal gain arouses emotion. In terms of education, the skills developing need to continuously develop to be an interest. If it is not an interest initially, one has to complete the phase of the realization on their own; an interest cannot be forced. (pp. 124-127)


 * __"Soft" Pedagogy/ "Soup-Kitchen" Theory of Education-__** When the objective results of an interest become entirely a personal desire without development, the end result becomes a bribe to keep one to focus. (p. 126)


 * __Will-__** When one is persistent in carrying out his or her aims. According to Dewey, the two factors in will are: Noticeable results, and how much these results have had an effect on a person. Sometimes a person is not fully persistent, and confuses their end result. A person who does think about their end result to the fullest extent possible, is persistent. In both cases the final outcomes or effects on a person are made, but aren't permanent.


 * __Discipline-__** Is very much connected to interest, and meant to be positive. A person who is disciplined is one who carries through an action or activity and understand their aim. The person knows they have power once their aims are recognized. This sense of power would not exist without interest. (p.129)


 * __Knowledge, Mind, Intelligence, and Subect Matter-__** Dewey proves the idea that subject matter is to be learned through the impressions it makes on the mind, and that the mind exists in itself through "mental states," so knowledge can occur, is false! The importance of the theory of education pertaining to interest proves this. The mind actually engages in action and understands the consequences; therefore it is directed intelligently, because it can control these consequences. (pp. 130-134)

Do you think Dewey accuratley connects the idea of interest with education? Why, or why not?
 * Discussion Guiding Questions:**

Are their still existent traces of the "soup-kitchen" theory of education?

Have you ever thought of discipline being positive, as Dewey presents it?

Do you agree with Dewey's statement concerning interest: Men's fundamental attitudes toward the world are fixed by the scope and qualities of the activities in which they partake? Why, or why not?

Do you see any progess with schools breaking away from the past traditions, and finally improving social conditions in a more imaginative way?