Scheduling the final projects showcase.
1. Why school?
Consider Dewey's conclusion to "Education as a Necessity of Life" (ch. 1):
Summary. It is the very nature of life to strive to continue in being. Since this continuance can be secured only by constant renewals, life is a self-renewing process. What nutrition and reproduction are to physiological life, education is to social life. This education consists primarily in transmission through communication. Communication is a process of sharing experience till it becomes a common possession. It modifies the disposition of both the parties who partake in it. That the ulterior significance of every mode of human association lies in the contribution which it makes to the improvement of the quality of experience is a fact most easily recognized in dealing with the immature. That is to say, while every social arrangement is educative in effect, the educative effect first becomes an important part of the purpose of the association in connection with the association of the older with the younger. As societies become more complex in structure and resources, the need of formal or intentional teaching and learning increases. As formal teaching and training grow in extent, there is the danger of creating an undesirable split between the experience gained in more direct associations and what is acquired in school. This danger was never greater than at the present time, on account of the rapid growth in the last few centuries of knowledge and technical modes of skill.
2. What is essential to schooling?
Consider an excerpt from Eamonn Callan's recent Creating Citizens: Political Education and Liberal Democracy about the role of political education in schools in a democratic society.
3. Should the existance of computer technology change one's views about either of the above?
Before discussing what we think of Dewey's position(s), let's try to be clear about what they are. One way to do this is to construct what we think would be a "Deweyan" analysis of some contemporary social/educational phenomenon. For example, what do you think the Dewey of chapters 7-9 would say about the rise of "home-schooling" in the US in the last decade?
In Chapter 7, Dewey suggests two criteria for evaluating the worth of particular societies and/or social arrangements. What are they and how do you think American society in the 1990s fares by these criteria?
Faulkner's notes and questions
Back to the three questions above, and specifically how the US 80 years after Democracy and Education might cause us to elaborate, challenge, or reconstruct Dewey's chapters.