Want
to install a lifelong interest and desire for learning for you students? John
Dewey in his book Democracy and Education
and Paulo Freire in his book Pedagogy
of The Oppressed I have written about how important this goal is for
teachers. Also it can be a difficult goal because of oppression and ideologies that
are formed in society. Both of these
authors provide thoughtful responses that seem to be quite comparable to help
improve education.
What
is education? Education is a constant process of thinking and learning. In
chapter six, Dewey mentions the definition of “education”. He says, “We thus
reach a technical definition of education: It is that reconstruction or
reorganization of experience which adds to the meaning of experience, and which
increases ability to direct the course of subsequent experience.” This is a
great example of the idea of education being a process. It is a process of
taking past experiences and information and using them to continue to learn and
grow and develop your education and thinking. We used an analogy in class about
how society says that we are all empty cups and there is a fountain of past
knowledge that teachers are pouring into us. Dewey says this is wrong! He says
that we need to live in the now and grow from our past experiences. We do this
by pulling out important things from our past to help us with the now. Freire
would agree that teachers should want to help their students to actually
understand the material they are being taught. Teaching is not just about
learning methods and techniques, but being able to break away from those
methods when needed. For example, teachers need to give students the
opportunity to actually form their own thinking processes through variety of
teaching methods based off who the students are and how they learn. After all,
education is a thinking process.
What is
philosophy? Philosophy of education is not defined by a definite subject matter;
it is deeper than that and can be used among many different subjects.
Specifically in chapter 23 it says, “Philosophy was stated to be a form of
thinking, which, like all thinking, finds its origin in what is uncertain in
the subject matter of experience, which aims to locate the nature of the
perplexity and to form hypotheses for its uncertainties with which it deals are
found in widespread social conditions and aim, consisting in a conflict of
organized interests and institutional claims.” So we see that philosophy is a
continual practice and it is not just about a subject matter, it is about
thinking. What do I mean when I say “it is not about a subject matter”? I mean
that it is not about just understanding the material and having the knowledge
“poured” into our “empty cups” by teachers. It is about actually understanding
what we are learning and applying it and keeping the process going outside of
school. Friere would argue that the best way to continue the process is to find
out what the students enjoy and actually apply the learning in class to these
topics. If students like running, then when teaching math, the teacher should
try using an example or project that is related to running. We need to make
sure our students are excited about learning and by relating their interests to
learning; it will help students get excited. Overall, teachers need to remember that philosophy
is not about one specific subject; it can be used for various ones because
philosophy and education is a deeper thinking.
Education and
philosophy are both thinking processes, therefore they are the same. Education
is not just learning one subject, but applying it to other aspects of your life
and thinking deeper. Dewey feels that education is about taking individual
students and letting them be their own individual. As teachers, we need to give
our students time to think further and apply deeper meanings to the material we
teach them. We need to be able to let our students have their own ideas and let
their ideas form our classroom discussions and topics. It is important to let
our students have freedom in the classroom to grow how they desire to grow and
give them the best opportunities to do so. Freire says that this is best done
through interests and teachers recognizing that they can relate them to
subjects. We need to make sure our students are not just memorizing the
material and getting through it; we want our students to actually understand
what they are learning and be able to use it again. Education is so important
and not just in the classroom. It is important to all aspects of life. Being
able to recognize that philosophy and thinking will help our educational system
is the key to success in our classrooms.
Both authors
recognize that setting these goals are wonderful, but they are difficult.
Friere would say that one reason why this is difficult is because of oppression
in society. On page 53 it says, “Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others,
a characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge
as processes of inquiry.” Education is not perfect, so teachers need to form
unity in classrooms and school in order to get rid of the oppression. He feels
that this is one of the only ways to transform classrooms and education. If
teachers can find something in each class to unify the group, it will make
learning and the exciting for learning to increase and improve. Freire also
says that these are not the same for each class, which is why teachers also
need to be involved in the learning process and open to changing and improving
constantly. Dewey says that education was formed with good intentions, but it
has become an ideology. Teachers intend to help students grow, but sometimes
they get caught up in the rules, guidelines, and methods and forget that
straying away from the book and discussing is also a way to learn. Our
classrooms should be open to trying new things. After all, our society is
constantly changing, so we should change and modify along with it. Transforming
education can be difficult, but we just need to realize this and then be open
to new things and unifying our classes.
Personally, I understand where both authors
are coming from, but our world is not perfect. It is sinful and as a Christian
I hope to be a teacher that knows my students and tries to find the best
possible way to teach each student and ignite a fire within them. I think that
it is always a growing experience though. I plan to try new things and I may
fail a few times before something works, but I will keep working at bettering
society and education because it is what we are called to do. Everything is
meaningless on this earth unless we are doing it for Christ. When studying
Dewey’s book, I myself wishing that he could share with us more ideas on how to
create the type of atmosphere that he describes for our classrooms. He has
awesome insight into what the classroom should look like, but does not specifically
share with us ideas on how to make this reality. I do not disagree with him,
but I do question how I will do this in specific situations. Some years I may
encounter myself with challenging students who do not like learning or can find
no motivation to work hard. What now would Dewey say to me? How will I put his
advice into action? I felt that Freire’s book gave me the answers I had from
Dewey’s book. Freire says that we can get rid of oppression and help make the
desired classroom atmosphere reality by unifying our classroom. We can unify
our classrooms through knowing ours students and their interests and connecting
them to learning. To conclude Dewey made me think and Friere helped me make
connections. These two authors correspondingly said that education is an
ongoing process of thinking supported by a very similar idea, philosophy. Overall,
I feel challenged after studying Democracy
and Education and Pedagogy of the
Oppressed to install a lifelong interest and desire for learning into each
one of my students, don’t you?
