Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of EducationDewey, John
Philosophy
Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education
Dewey, John
Education -- Philosophy; Education -- Social aspects
The nervous strain and fatigue which result with both teacher and pupil
are a necessary consequence of the abnormality of the situation in which
bodily activity is divorced from the perception of meaning. Callous
indifference and explosions from strain alternate. The neglected body,
having no organized fruitful channels of activity, breaks forth, without
knowing why or how, into meaningless boisterousness, or settles into
equally meaningless fooling--both very different from the normal play
of children. Physically active children become restless and unruly; the
more quiescent, so-called conscientious ones spend what energy they have
in the negative task of keeping their instincts and active tendencies
suppressed, instead of in a positive one of constructive planning
and execution; they are thus educated not into responsibility for the
significant and graceful use of bodily powers, but into an enforced duty
not to give them free play. It may be seriously asserted that a chief
cause for the remarkable achievements of Greek education was that it was
never misled by false notions into an attempted separation of mind and
body.
(b) Even, however, with respect to the lessons which have to be learned
by the application of "mind," some bodily activities have to be used.
The senses--especially the eye and ear--have to be employed to take in
what the book, the map, the blackboard, and the teacher say. The lips
and vocal organs, and the hands, have to be used to reproduce in speech
and writing what has been stowed away. The senses are then regarded as
a kind of mysterious conduit through which information is conducted from
the external world into the mind; they are spoken of as gateways and
avenues of knowledge. To keep the eyes on the book and the ears open
to the teacher's words is a mysterious source of intellectual grace.
Moreover, reading, writing, and figuring--important school arts--demand
muscular or motor training. The muscles of eye, hand, and vocal organs
accordingly have to be trained to act as pipes for carrying knowledge
back out of the mind into external action. For it happens that using the
muscles repeatedly in the same way fixes in them an automatic tendency
to repeat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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