La Teoria De La Educacion

The Where, How & Why of Education

John Dewey & Arthur Bestor

























Sarah Provins
Contemporary Issues
ED604
Arthur Bestor in his book, Educational Wastelands, may refer to John Dewey’s ideas a couple of times but not because he agrees whole-heartily with him; often quite the opposite is true. John Dewey in his book, Democracy and Education,and Arthur Bestor in his book provide their readers with plans for the reorganization of the American public school system. Even though the general gists of the books are similar, their ideas concerning this critical change are often very different. Dewey spends a great deal of time writing on the specifics of education, including that is it life itself, a social function, direction, andgrowth. He also focuses on the different yet connected and intertwined nature of education and schooling, which aid in the search for meaning and understanding (Dewey, 1916, p. 9). Arthur Bestor presents his ideas on education by critically discussing the current failures in public education which continue into America’s colleges. Bestor discusses the need for progressive education and areorganization of teacher training. Many of the topics written about by Dewey and Bestor often overlap, contradict, or coincide. True to this is their discussions on where and how education should occur and to what purpose it should be employed; or the where, how and why of education. These interconnected issues, the process of education and the purpose of said education, are key components to theoverarching issue of the need for reform of the current public school systems in America.
Both Dewey and Bestor thoroughly discuss education in terms of what it is, what it should contain, where it should originate and what it is to provide to the ‘learner’. Although some of their ideas may overlap more than noted, from the context of their books and the style in which they write, certain differencesare apparent. For Dewey, education is a major yet aptly balanced counterpart to schooling (training) (1916, p. 9). While schooling provides certain needed skills which enable or aid an individual in thinking, education is the process of seeking meaning and understanding from experiences in an ever-changing, dynamic and imbalanced world. Dewey’s ideas on education are based firmly in his beliefsabout the existence of relative truth (relative to a particular moment) and free will.
To Dewey, education is an internal progress, in that the direction which education occurs does not come from an outside source but from an intrinsic drive. He states that “purely external direction is impossible” because “nothing can be forced upon” or into a person (Dewey, 1916, p. 26). To Dewey onlythe environment can act as an intermediate between two people for there is no such thing as “direct influence of one human being on another” (Dewey, 1916, p. 28). Thus education occurs not within a school’s walls but in the world among social direction that influences the use of materials and tools (Dewey, 1916, p. 39). Therefore, the ‘where’ of education, according to Dewey occurs outside ofschool, in the world, with the help of skills learned in the classroom.
The ‘experiences’ that Dewey writes about are ones had by the individual and are essential for thought; “no experience having a meaning is possible without some element of thought” (1916, p. 145). In terms of learning, these experiences should not be forced on one from an outside source but are chosen by the individual.Especially for youths, Dewey believes that there should be an emphasis on their early experiences with “native activities” within the environment (1916, p. 79). These learning experiences have the potential to arise at any moment, and are often mediated by the way others, society, uses tools and appliances (Dewey, 1916, p. 29). For this reason, Dewey’s idea on how education should occur is most...