Pragmatic Naturalism: An Introduction

18. Societies and Their Schools

18. Societies and Their Schools Educational theories and practices have been of vital interest to the pragmatic naturalists. Peirce made some observations about education, but these are made primarily from the point of view of an inquirer and not as one directly involved in the teaching experience. Peirce's experience as a teacher was limited, and after he left the classroom at Johns Hopkins, his primary contact with formal education was in the form of occasional lectures. James, Mead, and Dewey were professional teachers, directly involved in the daily tasks of preparing lectures, leading discussions, and directing research. They view education and philosophy as intimately related to the total development of human life. Dewey writes: "Education is the laboratory in which philosophical distinctions become concrete and are tested."1 Philosophy remains purely dialectical and verbal unless related to action, and the kind of action which is most significant is that involved in education taken in the widest sense. Furthermore, reconstruction in philosophy, when related to education, results in the reconstruction of individual and social life. In r894 Dewey left the University of Michigan to assume a new position at the University of Chicago as head of the Department of Philosophy, Psychology, and Pedagogy. One of the enticements to Chicago, besides a reunion with his former colleague, James H. Tufts, was the opportunity to establish a laboratory school in education. The school opened in r896, and Dewey remained associated with it PRAGMATIC NATURALISM 186 until 1904 when he left Chicago to go to Columbia University in New York City. Mead joined the faculty at Chicago in 1894 and became actively involved in the laboratory school. The decade of Dewey's residence in Chicago when the laboratory school was established was one of the most creative in the history of American education. During this time Dewey gave many addresses and wrote many articles and books about the theory and practice of education. The philosophy which guided the laboratory school gradually evolved, and the principal ideas are contained in Dewey's works: My Pedagogic Creed (r897)/ The School and Society (r900L3 and the recently published class notes, Lectures in the Philosophy of Education: 1899.4 After leaving the laboratory school Dewey continued to write on education, and two of his most influential works are Democracy and Education (r9r6) and Experience and Education (r938).5 In 1892 James was asked to address the teachers of Cambridge, Massachusetts , on the relation of psychology to education. These lectures were later published under the title Talks to Teachers on Psychology (1899).6 Mead's articles on education are few in number, but his writings have had a lasting influence on the development of the pragmatic naturalists' philosophy of education.7 Pragmatic naturalists believe that education is a vital function in any society. Dewey describes a society as "a number of people held together because they are working along common lines, in a common spirit, and with reference to common aims."S The institution of education has emerged because societies have sought to transmit certain ,beliefs, practices, and values to their younger members. Education is necessary if any society is to perpetuate itself, and thus there is an intimate relation between any society and its schools. A brief glance at some of the relations of societies and their schools reveals that the nature and function of formal EDUCATION 187 schooling depends upon the values and purposes held uppermost by each society. At times education serves the ruling class to keep the disinherited and the ignorant in subjection ; at other times education performs the function of liberating the capacities of human beings. Sometimes learning is an activity which concerns a special social class; this was the case especially in those ages before printing was invented . In those times the high priests of learning were responsible for the acquisition and preservation of knowledge, while the masses had no access to this dimension of human experience. With the invention of printing an intellectual revolution occurred. Books, magazines, journals, and newspapers made ideas accessible to a larger populace, and the clamor arose for the widening of education to more people. In recent years the widespread use of the media of radio and television has brought about a communications revolution and a still wider dissemination of knowledge. Societies and their schools operate in a world of social change. Change, of course, is a generic trait of experience and nature. Some societies...