On July 8 last year, countries participating in the 2011 High-Level Segment of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) unanimously adopted a ministerial declaration, noting the importance of moving beyond MDG 2 of universal primary education in favour of a more holistic and inclusive vision of education systems. This high-level ministerial review meets once a year, but this is the first time that ECOSOC focused on education. Although this is a welcome and important acknowledgement, inclusive and holistic education is not a new or original idea, just a remixed one.
Everything is a remix is a 4-part series by Kirby Ferguson, whose basic premise is, well, that everything is a remix.
“Remixing is a folk art but the techniques are the same ones used at any level of creation: copy, transform, and combine. You could even say that everything is a remix”.
Part 1 looks at modern music, part 2 at film, part 3 at creativity. Do not watch part 1 if you are a Led Zeppelin fan. You can also get stuck into the conversation and let Kirby know what your favourite remixes are here. In the spirit of remixing, I want to take Kirby’s hypothesis and apply it to education.
It starts with one person. John Dewey. All progress in education philosophy, management, pedagogy, and curriculum can be traced back to this person. I (almost) guarantee that you can pick up an journal article or book on child-centred learning, on education in general, and Dewey will be the protagonist in the citations.
His 1903 article, ‘Democracy in education‘ in The Elementary School Teacher journal, is 13 pages long and has been cited well over 522 times according to Google Scholar. His 1916 book, Democracy and Education has been cited well over 12,000 times. By contrast, John Maynard Keynes’ 1936 treatise, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, which has shaped modern macroeconomics, has been cited over 17,000 times. Meanwhile, William Easterly’s 2006 The White Man’s Burden, which is shaping modern aid and development discourse, has been cited just over 1,483 times.
To keep in mind about the year 1903:
- Only two countries had given women the right to vote.
- Edward VII of England was proclaimed Emperor of India.
- The High Court of Australia sat for the first time.
- The first teddy bear and box of crayons were introduced and sold.
- The Russian Social Democratic Labor Party splits into two groups, one being the Bolsheviks.
- Tour de France was announced.
- The Wright Flyer became the first powered, heavier-than-air machine to achieve controlled flight.
Writing about the public education system in the U.S. in his 1903 article, he had this to say about the role of teachers in a democratic model of school management and education:
“The system which makes no great demands upon originality, upon invention, upon the continuous expression of individuality, works automatically to put and to keep the more incompetent teachers in the school” (p.198).
In one of his more powerful arguments, which still has great currency today, Dewey stated that any educational reform that is undemocratic and “repels” those who exhibit the above characteristics “are compromised at their source and postponed indefinitely for fruition (p.199)”. Research has shown that educational inputs – books, uniforms, desks – alone do not improve a child’s achievement, but that single most effective variable is the quality and training of the teacher.
Dewey goes on to make his most powerful statement, which still marks him as history’s most progressive and influential educational philosopher:
“The undemocratic suppression of the individuality of the teacher goes naturally with the improper restriction of the intelligence of the mind of the child”.
He argues that denying the intellectual freedom of a child, of self-direction in learning, is to deny the very principles of democracy. And, that giving free expression to a child’s intellectual freedom can be achieved through what we now as commonly know active and inquiry-based learning; through experiential and child-centred learning.
“What is primarily required for that direct inquiry which constitutes the essence of science is first-hand experience; an active and vital participation through the medium of all the bodily organs with the means and materials of building up first-hand experience” (p.200).
Dewey strongly believed that a public school can and should be the site for freedom of expression and cognitive development. Schools can be places of learning that are relevant to the child’s own life; a common theme in current educational literature and policy. Classrooms should encourage and provide for scientific experiments, “in the sense of trying things or to see what will happen is the most natural business of the child; it is, indeed, his chief concern” (p.202). A child’s freedom of expression and learning in school should also be found in art, music and story-telling. But, most of all, Dewey argues, schools and education in general, must be a site for a partnership between three motives – of affection, of social growth, and of scientific inquiry.
I first read Dewey’s philosophy when studying for a postgraduate degree in education. His writings are inspirational, and formed the basis for my own approach to teaching and learning. I remixed his Pedagogic Creed into my own.
“I believe that much of present education fails because it neglects this fundamental principle of the school as a form of community life. It conceives the school as a place where certain information is to be given, where certain lessons are to be learned, or where certain habits are to be formed. The value of these is conceived as lying largely in the remote future; the child must do these things for the sake of something else he is to do; they are mere preparation. As a result they do not become a part of the life experience of the child and so are not truly educative”.
It is easy to think that the above paragraph could have been written in 2011, when in fact it was written in 1897 in Volume 54 of School Journal. We take for granted the notion that education is largely a psychological and social process; both an individual and group experience. This idea is deeply embedded in modern curriculum development, teacher and learning pedagogy, classroom activities, lesson planning and teacher training around the world. Your own education is a remix of Dewey’s thinking: the field trip to the history museum; the science experiments with a Bunsen burner; the small group tasks where you pull the weight of one team member; and the reflective writing about how a certain book or character relates to your own experiences.
However, this remix is not the club jam that it should be, particularly in the global development agenda. We have essentially watered down education and the pragmatic, yet aspirational philosophy of Dewey. We have sentimentalised education, forgetting about the process and focusing excessively on the Goals of Education For All. Dewey believed that “next to deadness and dullness, formalism and routine, our education is threatened with no greater evil than sentimentalism”.
A recent post on the Lowy Institute’s Interpreter asks whether there is a misplaced emphasis on education in the development agenda. Danielle Romanes, glancing at education in Papua New Guinea (PNG), rightly points out that addressing supply-side constraints cannot be an isolated from demand driven considerations. Although, the provision and access of education is not black and white, it reminds us to keep in mind that there has to be reasons for education. Supply side interventions can be part of this same watered-down narrative. Books, desks, schools. Research has shown that the provision of books, desks, and even school infrastructure does not necessarily produce positive correlations with increased learning outcomes. Inputs are not educative in and of themselves, nor are they autonomous. They appeal to sentiment, reducing education to moveable parts without considering the more difficult challenges of relevance, quality, democracy, equity, inclusion, and participation, all of which can be considered demand driven considerations. It also ignores the social and culture practice of education, something Dewey recognised and emphasised, but which has since been lost in policy and application.
Access to primary schooling is rising globally, but retention and achievement rates are not showing the same improvements. This is especially the case for those children from rural, high poverty areas and particular for certain household and demographic profiles (based on number of children in a family, gender, disability, parent’s education, etc.). It would not be surprising to see increasing drop out rates, given the lack of secondary schooling opportunities, the direct/indirect and opportunity costs of education, and poor quality and delivery of education. It is not that the emphasis on education is misplaced. It is right where it should be, if not deserving of more amplification. There is just so much other noise – background, static, white – which distracts from the proper emphasis of education.
“I believe that to set up any end outside of education, as furnishing its goal and standard, is to deprive the educational process of much of its meaning and tends to make us rely upon false and external stimuli in dealing with the child” (J. Dewey, 1897 My Pedagogic Creed).
About Brendan Rigby
Brendan is a professional educator, having worked as a teacher at both the primary and secondary levels in China and Australia. Although he pursued the dreams of Indiana Jones in Uzbekistan, he eventually completed an MA in Development Studies at the University of NSW. Brendan has interned with the Centre for Refugee Research and volunteered at ActionAid Australia, Football United & Wokai. After teaching, he became a Senior Researcher and Project Manager in Learning & Teaching at Macquarie University. Brendan currently works as an Education Officer with UNICEF in Tamale, Ghana.
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Good post. It reminded me of a book I read which I recommend enthusiastically: Harris, Stephen. 1990. In Two way Aboriginal schooling: education and cultural survival. Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra. In particular, Chapters 2 "Aboriginal World View" and 7 “Curriculum design”.
With a focus on the experience of schooling for Australian Indigenous children (esp in remote areas), it engages with these ideas about social and cultural practice of schooling in a way that really stuck with me and drew out some of the fundamentally mis-fitting assumptions of universaility that we make about the role of schooling and types of knowledge. I think it is a thought-provoking read for teachers well beyond the small number teaching in remote Australia. It also includes very interesting commentary of the difficulty, but real-world necessity, of bringing up children with two cultural identities: how schooling can, without intention, strip away minority culture, and how this is weighed against the view of many members of the community that schooling is essential for their children's futures.
Retention and achievent rates are part of the problem! Ofcourse access to education needs to be broadened but the emphasis on content is or can be lethal. Learning becomes sort of a filling of information into a cerebral garbage bag. In some instances there is the advantage of information processing techniques. What we need, first of all, is tools to train the minds of students in the same way as a musician learns to play the piano or guitar and THEN armed with a well tuned instrument, impart information, again as a fund to be assimilated and used intelligently as and when needed. If one can't absorb and assimilate educatent or learn life and work skills in the class room,it's a waste of time! The student may achieve the goal of landing the wished for job which may be critical but it can't be the true goal of education
Hi Brendan. Thank you for the thought-provoking piece. It instantly got me reflecting on my own practices as a teacher/lecturer and teacher educator, and those of the teachers around me. In a (socio-cultural) context that is still highly influenced by the "children must be seen and not heard" attitude/approach, allowing children the space to explore and self-direct is generally equated to "giving up the power". Actually there are teachers for whom teaching literally means "director", and they are by nature very authoritative. This basically means that their philosophy is at cross-purposes with the very essence of democratic facilitation of classroom learning. Indeed, depending on where one lives and the (cultural) values that govern life around them may be, one may find it very tricky to strike the balance between facilitating and directing learning…
Dewey's teachings are forgotten in today's mass education systems, particularly in America. Even more tragically ignored is Rudolph Steiner's powerful model for development of the WHOLE CONSTITUTION of the child. It required of teachers far more intense SELF-DEVELOPMENT…in order to be instrumental in porperly serving the child's growth and creative expression development. Today, much of Steiner's model has been bastardized by teachers who have not evolved and achieved higher consciousness development. Humans are DUALITIES…both the finite-linear aspect of the mental body is the "slayer of the REAL". It is housed in the left side of the brain. BOTH sides of the brain must be developed (age-appropriately) AT THE SAME TIME. This means that the CREATIVE EXPRESSION must be demanded from the teachers and each student. It is the CREATIVE expression demand (the full spectrum of the arts and means of practical applications) that must be demanded in all education systems and curricula. Practical applications often go to establishing right public policy.