Dewey+Project+Group+2

__The School and Society __ by: John Dewey  Chapters 5-8  Jessica & Lindsey

//It took a bit to fully understand where we were jumping into our assigned chapters (5-8) but it began making sense after figuring out how the chapters are, sort of, laid out. Here is what we feel are the critical points of the final chapters in __The School and Society__:// __ ﻿Chapter 5 __ // Froebel's Educational Principal // ﻿ ﻿ This chapter begins by jumping right into Froebel's philosophy toward education. The chapter continually referenced "Froebel's time" which was never really given (in our assigned chapters at least). We did look up a bit more information to help clarify the following points. Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852) has been credited as the inventor of //Kindergarten// [Germany]. Froebel designed the concept of // Kindergarten // to focus on both self-confidence and social personalities.

Friedrich Froebel  Throughout chapter 5, Dewey discusses his view of Froebel's principal. He agrees with a wide variety of Froebel's philosophy and also helps understand Froebel's views based upon the time period in which Froebel was establishing the first kindergartens. The following principals were the key components of Froebel's kindergarten. These were Froebel's philosophies for education in general not specific to, what we now view as, kindergarten. Froebel felt that the "Kindergarten Philosophy" should be carried throughout all schooling. Dewey certainly agreed with Froebel's philosophies on education but felt it most significantly applied to students ages 4-6. __ The Importance of "Play" __ Froebel was a firm believer in the importance of "play" within the educational setting. However, his definition of play was crucial to it's implementation. Froebel felt that "play" was not something a child demonstrated externally, but rather a combinations of all the child's powers, thoughts //and// physical movements. Dewey found it important to mention his own beliefs based on Froebel's philosophies at this point of his essay. Dewey makes a point to note that it is crucial that the teacher consistently evaluates the "play" used within her classroom to avoid using activities that are based on familiarity rather than what the specific child needs at that given point in time. What we found very interesting was that Dewey stressed that it is vital for each teacher to have absolute freedom to obtain suggestions from any and every source in order to meet the needs of these early students (if only we were granted such freedom and trust). Dewey also stressed that is it important to realize that Froebel did not feel that "play" was the one and only way to educate younger children. Dewey felt that Froebel expected his followers to take advantage of the best psychological and philosophical insight available to them at the time. __ Symbolism, Imagination and Play __ __ ﻿ __ Froebel believed, firmly, that Kindergarten activities should be more natural, direct and more of a real representation of current life. If Froebel has been credited for the invention of Kindergarten this makes us question what we (American Society) now label as 5-year-old Kindergarten. No longer does sound like 5K (what we think of when I hear the word "Kindergarten") is a time of play, exploration, letting imaginations soar, and practicing standard household routines. [My {Lindsey's} opinion on this is based on what my little brother is currently doing in 4K, observations of many kindergarten classrooms, and Laura's descriptions in class.] If our "Kindergarten" no longer follows the inventors guidelines, should we really even be labeling this grade level "kindergarten?" Froebel also felt strongly in regards to the imaginations of young children. Froebel felt that the imaginative play of a child's mind is developed through suggestions, reminiscences, and anticipations. Therefore, Froebel felt that the suggestions made by teachers must be more natural and straight-forward. He firmly believed that simple play-type tasks like dishwashing, dusting, etc. more "real" opportunity for imaginative play. This is the main reason that Froebel's kindergarten work centers were set up to resemble the home and neighborhood life. ﻿__Subject Matter and Method__ <span style="color: #008080; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">﻿In this section Dewey discussed the significance of the subject matter within Froebel's kindergarten. Froebel viewed the Kindergarten classroom as an extension of the home. It is the home setting that the child most relates to at this point in their life. Dewey did address the argument that this set-up, so similar to the home, may hinder a child's growth and development. Dewey's response to this was that oftentimes when too much ground is covered at such a young age, when teachers try to cram too much stimuli into one situation, often the opposite of the desired effect is achieved. The teacher makes every attempt to address // every // topic the child may ever encounter and thus the child becomes blase. The child loses their natural, personal, hunger for direct experience in its simplicity. The child also may develop a habit of rapidly jumping from one topic to another. This caused us to correlate this with today's large number of ADHD cases. Are we over-stimulating children at such a young age that their attention spans are actually being affected? They have been taught, at a very young age, to jump from topic to topic at an ever increasing speed? Are our students less motivated because we attempt to cram as much as we can into each moment of the school day? While we have the best of intentions, are we actually creating a larger problem than we are attempting to avoid? Froebel and Dewey both agreed that teachers need to utilize resources and materials, within the classroom, in real ways. Students will not benefit from exercises that do not directly apply to their lives, today. By giving students real life materials and exercises, and using the students themselves as guides for instruction, we create students that judge their own work--students that make revisions/reflections about their work solely on their own, naturally. This is certainly still our goal, yet we seem to be using the exact opposite method in order to achieve this goal? __ Chapter 6 __ // The Psychology of Occupations //<span style="color: #800000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">﻿ <span style="color: #800000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">The sixth chapter of Dewey's essay begins with discussing the importance of occupation within the school day. Dewey was not referring to your typical "busy work" but the importance of providing students with occupations or occupational activity that involves continual observation of materials, continual planning and reflection. Occupation should not be confused with trade-type activities but is different because the "end is in itself" (??--yes, this was a rather confusing portion). (Continual thinking and the action of the work?) When these occupation activites are reduced to routine their educational value is drastically diminished. We attempted to take this information and try to relate it to what we are currently doing within our classrooms. For instance, we compared this to Lindsey's assigned jobs. At the beginning of the school year Lindsey created her "class jobs" and then assigned the students to said jobs. Her students performed their daily duties but with no sense of purpose or determination. Half-way through the year she decided that her class jobs were pointless and the students themselves needed to determine what jobs were needed, what the requirements of the jobs should be and the students needed to assign their classmates particular jobs. Lindsey put the entire activity and its responsibilities on her students. The students stepped up to the plate and even created detailed, typed job descriptions. They went above and beyond what she originally expected of them (I have since set the bar much higher--Lindsey) and gained a great deal of life experience throughout the entire activity. Now, Lindsey's students are very serious about their particular classroom duties and dedicated to each of their given jobs. This is the best way that I [Lindsey] could wrap my head around this chapter and make some sense of the overall point. (Jessica-My classroom library needed to be set up by author, genre, or series. The students took ownership in helping me organize their library in the beginning of the year, so they now know where everything is and can take responsibility for the making of the classroom library. Before it was just me doing all the work, but this gave the students ownership and responsibility.) __Chapter 7__ // T //<span style="color: #881688; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">﻿ // he Development of Attention //  ﻿The idea of fostering or hindering a child's attention span was originally touched upon by Dewey in Chapter 5 of our assigned reading. In Chapter 7 Dewey makes more direct references to attention span, while in Chapter 5 we were simply inferring what he was saying. In Chapter 7, Dewey states that little children have their observations and thoughts mainly directed toward people: what they do, how they behave, what they are occupied with, and what happens because of that behavior. Little children base a lot of their own behavior on imitation. Before attending school, children's minds are fully occupied by matters of the home. Once they enter school, children become contributing members of society. As Froebel noted with his invention of Kindergarten, schooling of young children should involve play that resembles the home. It would make perfect sense that this would be a more natural transition. Throughout the chapter Dewey goes into extensive detail about the importance of, what I [Lindsey] believe is, his overall school model--providing students with truly hands-on, real life activities in which they have shown interest in and can relate to. It is this schooling that Dewey believes allows for natural growth and intellectual development. "A person who has gained the power of reflective attention, the power to hold problems, questions, before the mind, is in so far, intellectually speaking, educated. He has mental discipline--power of the mind and from the mind," according to Dewey. We certainly agree with this statement and feel that when a student "leaves" the schooling system they should be entirely capable of the aforementioned abilities--they should feel confident in their intellectual ability as well as confident in questioning and challenging their intellect. It wasn't until the end of the chapter that Dewey made some very true statements in regards to attention span, very true but also things we ever really thought about. Dewey stressed the importance, once again, of student occupation and student-driven instruction. Dewey discussed that it is crucial that students are intrinsically interested in the subject matter or their attention spans will always be questionable. He discussed the significance of //spontaneous attention//, or attention that does not require specific mental control--it comes naturally. Teachers will attempt many different strategies to gain student attention:
 * 1) The primary goal of schooling should be to train children to be contributing members of society. Schooling/Education should develop independent individuals that will move successfully through life.
 * 2) All schooling (curriculum) should primarily be based upon the attitudes and activities of the child. Curriculum, or what is to be taught and how, should not be determined through the ideas of someone else. Things that once seemed futile and trivial, like "play," can and are indeed very educational.
 * 3) In schooling, the child should be closely observed and a relationship with each child should be well established. Thus, allowing the teacher to develop lessons/activities right at the particular child's level.
 * surrounding material with foreign attractiveness
 * making bids or offering a bribe for attention by "making the lesson more interesting"
 * threats of lower grades and/or non-promotion
 * requiring students to stay after school
 * nagging
 * continuously calling upon the child to "focus" or "pay attention"
 * etc.

<span style="color: #881688; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: left;">However, regardless of the tactic used to con students into paying attention--even if those students do begin to pay attention following your reprimand, that attention will never be complete and natural attention. At best, you have gained partial or divided attention from that particular stud<span style="color: #881688; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">ent. If this then becomes a pattern that students attention will always depend upon some sort of outside source (in our current time this could even be more of a chemical dependence for those diagnosed with ADD/ADHD). These same students may always also require high levels of stimulation or a reward in order to pay attention. Rather than paying attention to gain knowledge and contribute to everyday life, these students feel that they only need to pay attention when their teacher wants them to be learning something. The question then becomes, when all else fails, how can we get students to pay attention and to truly pay attention naturally without hindering their attention spans for the remainder of their lives? Thinking about what I, Jessica, have tried in the classroom as a strategy is, I have tried to stay away from always saying the student's name. Instead say, "I am reading from page....or we will be looking at....or I pass by the students tap them on the shoulder and find the page for them. While on the carpet, I just ask politely if all the students are ready? I also say I will wait until everyone is ready, please show me that you are ready. <span style="color: #3d3da9; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">﻿ __ Chapter 8 __   // The Aim of History in Elementary Education //   // ﻿﻿﻿ // In chapter 8, Dewey switched from discussing crucial aspects of all schooling to focusing on one subject in particular: the study of history. Dewey begins the chapter by addressing how history is often viewed within the classroom and the common approach to the teaching of history. Oftentimes, the subject of history is simply thought of as "a record of the past." Dewey feels that if this is the opinions of the teacher and the approach taken, there is no wonder that students have little interest in the subject--"The past is the past and the dead may be safely left to bury its dead. There are too many urgent demands in the present, too many calls over the threshold of the future, to permit the child to become deeply immersed in what has forever gone by." However, when history is viewed as the account of the forms and forces of social life it shows the motives which draw men together. Students can take this information, notice historical patterns within society, and then apply this directly to their lives in the present. **History, for the educator, must be an indirect sociology--a study of how a society was formed and how it came to be as it is in the present.** Once Dewey explained his view of how history should be approached within the classroom, he further broke down how he felt a history curriculum must be organized in order for a child to fully comprehend and relate. Dewey believed that history should not simply be taught in a chronological manner. Students first entering school, at age 5 or 6, are far too young, developmentally, to understand the first societies of Babylon or of Egypt. Therefore, Dewey split his history curriculum into three overall categories.


 * The first category addresses students ages 6-8. He felts that these young students should first be exposed to "general history" or as Dewey describes, "history which is hardly history at all in the local or chronological sense, but which aims at giving the child insight into, and sympathy with, a variety of social activities." Students of age 6 should learn about typical occupations of people in the country and city in which they live; 7-year-old students should spend time discovering the evolution of inventions and their effects on life, and 8-year-olds should deal with the movements of migration, exploration and discovery which have connected the world as one. While the curriculum of 6 and 7-year-olds in quite independent, the 8-year-old's curriculum is helping them transition into Dewey's second category of the history curriculum.
 * The second category introduces students to local conditions and the activities of a given group of people. Dewey felt the curriculum for students age 9-11 years should be based up the city, state and country in which they live--this is most directly and indirectly relatable for the child. Once again, the third year of this category is also a transitional year, helping to prepare the child for the third a final category in Dewey's history curriculum.
 * The third, and final, category in Dewey's history curriculum does finally take on a chronological organization. It is around age 12 that students are developmentally ready to take what they have learned about the way in which their society has developed and compare it to those societies of the ancient world. In the third category students begin by learning about the ancient world and continue through European history, all the while comparing and contrasting these histories to that of American history.

Overall, Dewey firmly believed that students were not capable, from age 6 and up, of simply learning about various societies and shifting to new subject matter year after year. Dewey felt that it is vital for schools to approach history, first by relating to the child and what the experience within their daily lives. From here, this leads to more thorough and accurate knowledge of both the principals and facts of social life, and prepares students to study more specific historical periods later on.