Dewey and the Importance of Choice

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.

The Importance of Choice

One of the earliest statements made by Dewey that I found to ring quite true to my own educational experience was in chapter 2, The Need of a Theory of Experience. He states, “[H]ow many lost the impetus to learn because of the way in which learning was experienced by them?” (Dewey, 1938, p.26) In the next chapter, Dewey goes into additional detail about experience, and the idea that “experience is a moving force” (p. 38), and both of these concepts ring true. For me, core classes in formal schooling were quite a challenge. The only choice to be made in those types of classes was that based on skill, for example, algebra or calculus, honors or advanced placement English? By contrast, electives were much more interesting and I found them to be much more engaging; even though the method of education was the same, the subjects were still completely my choice, rather than something proscribed by the school’s administration or some other higher power. That element of choice has persisted in post-secondary education as well; undergraduate degrees also come with credit requirements that come from specific class types. Being able to choose the topics that I was most interested in, whether in high school when it came to electives, or selecting a graduate program, the element of choice was very important. I felt more invested and more interested in what I was to learn, which made me more successful in class.

Choice is as important for educators as it is for students, especially in relation to observations they might make about their learners. Dewey suggests that an educator must be aware of “what is actually going on in the minds of those who are learning” (p.39). By observing their learners, educators can speed up or slow down based upon the learners’ needs. I’ve had experiences with both types on a personal and a professional level. From the professional side, I’ve had classes with students that were rather advanced for the class material, which meant that I could delve more deeply into the technical details and spend more time answering specific questions than I ordinarily would. On the personal side, I took a year-long spirituality class with five others, and all of us ran into a variety of different issues all at the same time, which made it necessary to pause for a month so that everyone could catch up. In each case, it is incumbent on the facilitator or instructor to assess the needs of their students and exercise that choice to modify the material if needed. The class I took [for a different assignment] is an example of what might happen when educators don’t have the choice to modify their material; there were things that the facilitator could have done to help make the class more relevant for some of his students, but because the material was mandated by the corporation and he had no leeway to change it, it was more challenging for him to ensure that what he taught was useful for all learners in the room.

Reference:

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