Dewey On American Education

Dewey views that the American education system truly isn’t a democratic education and if we are to say that we have a democratic education we must provide the students with the correct one. According to Straume “Democracy is more than a conjoint experience, more than a mode of associated living; it is also a form of government (Straume 2016, 34).” With this statement, we can see that democracy plays a major rule in our society as well as our everyday lives. However, “These traits of democracy are not surface or superficial meanings. They embody Dewey’s reasons for preferring a democratic society to other forms of society. For him, a democracy and the education that promotes democracy are all about people co-creating a society in which everyone’s
life experience is continuously improved: a society in which all thrive and interrelate in peaceful and productive ways (Meadows 2013,446).” Although this is how Dewey believes for democratic education to be it is not every apparent in the modern classrooms today. Dewey believes that “structures and processes of interpretive discussion can promote many democratic principles, if the discussion is structured and facilitate in ways that give people opportunities to work on the democratic practices (Meadows 2013,442).” Although if this type of structure was implemented into the classroom, it truly wouldn’t benefit the student on achieving the American Dream. Therefore, to the student to be able to achieve the goal the way society thinks should completely change and that takes time. Meadows mentions, “when everyone’s strengths are exerted together to improve life conditions, more can be accomplished and more people can benefit as Dewey describes happening in a democratic society compared to other forms of society (Meadows 2013,448).” As a society, we need to make a change in the way we work with each other can try and work democratically if we would want our younger generation to have a chance of reaching the American Dream. Meadows states a way that this could be done is “when everyone’s strengths are exerted together to improve life conditions, more can be accomplished and more people can benefit as Dewey describes happening in a democratic society compared to other forms of society (Meadows 2013,448).” Therefore we as people need to work together instead as work for certain groups to that much more can be accomplished.
Thus “Dewey may mean by his first trait that in order to co-create a democracy, people need to communicate with one another about their goals to identify those they have in common and to increase the number and variety of their common goals (Meadows 2013,445).” Therefore, as teacher with the concepts that Dewey has given about democratic education, one can see that it is completely different that the education students are receiving. Dewey states “educators can help people realize that the well-being and progress of others who differ from themselves matter to them by helping people to learn to communicate across differences in ways that increase mutual understanding. Interpretive discussion is one way to accomplish this (Meadows 2013,450).” Thus, as educators we should provide our student with the best education and therefore the one that they are currently receiving isn’t helping them at
all. Dewey as state that a way educators can partake in change is by “educators in contemporary democracies need to pay more attention to political concerns (Straume 2016,29).” As Dewey stated before democracy is all connected and thus as educators we need to be aware of the changes in society. Dewey further goes on to state that “education is not simply preparation for a completed state to be arrived at in the future. Moreover, the result of a view of education as preparation is that students will be lethargic, will have no urgency in their daily lives (Fott 2009,10).” Thus, our current democratic education is setting our student up for failure and thus not allowing them to reach the American Dream. Thus, many students believe that if they attend school and receive decent grades they will be able to achieve the American Dream.
However due to how society is set up many students will not be able to acquire that goal due to the education system. For there to be a fair education system that allows all students the opportunity to achieve the American Dream the whole society must change and thus loss barriers that have been around for a while. Dewey states, “growth is the most important aim of life and that, therefore, education should cultivate growth (Meadows 2013,443).” Education in many classrooms isn’t creating growth in students and the education system is just making the gap between majority and minority students even larger. Therefore, to achieve a true democratic education “members of a democracy need to work to adjust the ways in which they live and think in response to communicating with people whom they did not know before these interactions (Meadows 2013,446).” Thus, the democratic education that students are currently receiving is setting them up for failure because a democratic education is supposed to be fair and equal to everyone but it is not
currently.