Dewey and Social Learning

John Dewey's Experience and Education, written in 1938, was required reading for one of my first courses at CSU, and it took me most of the quarter to get through it, in spite of the fact that it's only 90 pages long. It's very dense, and the language can be a challenge, but there are still some great things to be gleaned from it.

The assignment after reading the book was to write a reflection based on the reading, and there are a couple of sections directly from my reflection that I wanted to be sure to include here, simply because they're concepts that I find important.

Social Learning

Social learning was another aspect of experience and education discussed by Dewey, where he suggests that, “all human experience is ultimately social” (1938, p. 38). This, to me, is the heart of all education, and of everything, the statement that rings the loudest among a number of other insightful observations. Learning is not accomplished in a vacuum, experience is more difficult to obtain alone, and, by default, any classroom or learning session that is led by a facilitator or instructor and has learners attend, whether in person or otherwise, is a social occurrence. The instructor is there to provide knowledge on some type of subject, while the learners are there to take that information in. The give-and-take between all parties is an integral and invaluable part of learning.

Dewey goes on to discuss how developing experience through interaction is also social. Interactions are determined by the facilitator, who sets the lesson plan and adapts it for his or her students if needed, but there is also value in ensuring that the facilitator is a member of the social group. Margaret Ossoli’s Boston Conversations are a great example of this type of interactive learning; Ossoli started each of her sessions as a leader, giving information and background on the topic to be discussed, and then shifted her role to that of a participant. Not only does this serve to reinforce the facilitator’s member of the group as that of another learner, but it also empowers the students and enables them to learn from one another as much as they learn from a facilitator. By the nature of our classes at CSU, we’re also an example of this: we each bring the weight of our own experiences to class discussions, which we then share with one another, and our professors contribute both as class members and as experts to whom we can turn with questions. In addition, in one of my recent classroom sessions for my job, I had three learners all from different customers and different parts of the country that spent three days learning with and from one another, and left the class more knowledgeable than they might have otherwise.

Situation and interaction are also inherently social when it comes to education and experience. Dewey mentions that experiences are what they are because of what is happening around an individual at the time, so fellow learners, facilitators, even the environment itself can influence how and what someone learns. One thing I find interesting about this is that, even though the content may be the same – even though classes may use the same textbooks or the same source material – every class can end up being different because each class has different learners, all of whom are bringing their own individual perspectives and experiences into play. As a student or a learner, this can be harder to see, because it is outside of our experience; all we know is our current situation, which doesn’t extend beyond our current class. The facilitator has unique view of this by nature of their position, and this concept also ties back to one discussed earlier, that a facilitator needs to be able to adapt or change to differing needs in the classroom. Adapting to the needs of each individual group of learners can make a more successful experience for facilitators and students alike.

Reference:

Dewey, J. (1938). Experience & education. New York, NY: Touchstone