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
Laws are introduced at a very early stage, with at best a few
indications of the way in which they were arrived at. The pupils learn
a "science" instead of learning the scientific way of treating the
familiar material of ordinary experience. The method of the advanced
student dominates college teaching; the approach of the college is
transferred into the high school, and so down the line, with such
omissions as may make the subject easier.
The chronological method which begins with the experience of the learner
and develops from that the proper modes of scientific treatment is often
called the "psychological" method in distinction from the logical method
of the expert or specialist. The apparent loss of time involved is
more than made up for by the superior understanding and vital interest
secured. What the pupil learns he at least understands. Moreover by
following, in connection with problems selected from the material of
ordinary acquaintance, the methods by which scientific men have reached
their perfected knowledge, he gains independent power to deal with
material within his range, and avoids the mental confusion and
intellectual distaste attendant upon studying matter whose meaning
is only symbolic. Since the mass of pupils are never going to become
scientific specialists, it is much more important that they should get
some insight into what scientific method means than that they should
copy at long range and second hand the results which scientific men have
reached. Students will not go so far, perhaps, in the "ground covered,"
but they will be sure and intelligent as far as they do go. And it is
safe to say that the few who go on to be scientific experts will have
a better preparation than if they had been swamped with a large mass of
purely technical and symbolically stated information. In fact, those
who do become successful men of science are those who by their own power
manage to avoid the pitfalls of a traditional scholastic introduction
into it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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