The world is moving at a tremendous rate; no one knows where. We must prepare our children not for the world of the past, not for our world, but for their world. The world of the future. – John Dewey
I met Grant Lichtman when he was on his education journey – a road trip with an itinerary that took him to dozens of schools across the country.
You can read all about those visits on his blog The Learning Pond.
At my invitation, he graciously included Poughkeepsie Day School on his tour and spent an afternoon with us. One of the questions he asked was whether there was anything we and other forward-looking schools were doing that was not presaged by John Dewey. And of course the answer to that had to be: “No”.
I was delighted to hear him say in his presentation at the NAIS Annual Conference in Philadelphia (Twitter hashtag #naisac13 ) that he could distil the key findings of his school visits to one word: Dewey. That very short clip above is from a video that provides a glimpse of America’s twentieth century education journey. See the whole video at the end of the post.
Seems to me that we – or some of us at least – are now entering a new progressive era of Tinker, Tailor, Solder, Sew and LBD (Learning by Doing). In some respects, and for some children, we are now in another golden age for learning. There’s a growing movement toward tinkering, maker-spaces, fab labs, problem/ project-based learning, STEM to STEAM and design thinking. There’s a renewed recognition of the importance of student engagement, creative contribution, authenticity, relevance and diverse intellectual activity. Maybe there will even be a new Eight Year Study to provide the evidence of efficacy. (One can dream!)
These practices allow learners to construct and build their knowledge and their future by honoring their creativity, curiosity, capacity, intentions and dreams.
Dewey would be very happy at this counter to the current deadening but all too prevalent pre-progressive era practices of NCLB-driven standards, testing and competitive races to nowhere.
And my favorite line: “Innovation means doing what John Dewey told us to do.”
Back in Poughkeepsie I dug up my dog-eared Dewey and started to re-read. In the end I found a free Kindle version and used the highlight feature to make notes.
From an earlier reading I had made the following summary:
Key ideas: from Democracy and Education – John Dewey 1916
Students:
Schools:
Learning:
It all sounds very foundational and basic to me. Any objections to any of that? Perhaps my re-reading will lead to an update.
Grant had some rather amusing and acerbic remarks about the excuses we make for not doing the work. We claim that it’s hard when it is actually just uncomfortable. Removing the Nazis from Europe was hard, crossing the Delaware in winter was hard. Doing what is right for our students is not so much!
There was more to his presentation but I’ll save that for another time.
This presentation was a preview of the book Grant is writing about his journey and his findings. I can’t wait!
Here is a short section from the introduction to his earlier book. The Falconer:
We are not teaching our children, our students, and our co-workers what they really need to know. The lessons aren’t out there on some shelf or Web site. They won’t be found with more money and more programs to push more stuff in more different ways at our kids and our employees. It’s not about computer-to-student ratios, distance learning, high-speed links to the Library of Congress, or lecture podcasts. It’s not a pricey selfhelp guru claiming that his “new thing” is new, seven cookbook steps to success, or ten simple mileposts to make a million for your company.Those tools help, but they are the dressing, like ornaments on a Christmas tree. We need to pay attention to the tree itself. Look at the people who invented computers, who designed the Internet, who overcame the Depression, who envisioned the best sellers, who challenged racism, who explored the ocean depths, who built the Panama Canal, who created the management-consulting firms that you hire to tell you how to run your business more efficiently. I want my children and my employees and my co-workers and my friends to exhibit qualities like invention, courage, creativity, insight, design, and vision a lot more than I want them to know the capitals of South America or the sequence of presidents and kings, fractions, computer science, art history, running a cash register, or throwing a football.In short, I want us to spend more time teaching how to generate and recognize elegant solutions to the many problems facing our world.Why in our great system of child rearing and primary, secondary, college, graduate, and postgraduate education is there no course of study titled something like Strategies for Becoming Who I Want to Be?
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Innovation! Such a buzz word. Yet it's what we should always be doing all the time. It's what children need as always enter the new world leave us to ours. Our job is to help them do that: Understand our past and move to their future. It's not always easy!