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2. John Dewey and the Laboratory School
- Southern Illinois University Press
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CHAPTER TWO John Dewey and the Laboratory School I went to the Dewey School one day, And saw the children all at play. But when the tardy bell had rung, All the classes had begun. Some to Science, some to French, Some to shop to work at the bench. L.o.t.D.o.E., Dewey, Dewey, Dew-ee-ee. When Thursday afternoon is here There are excursions if it's clear To Stony Island in Highland Park, And they often stay tiII nearly dark. Mister Gillett points here and there, Showing things both strange and fair. L.o,t.D.o.E., Dewey, Dewey, Dew-ee-ee.' THUS THE STUDENTS IMMORTALIZED in song the experimental school run by the DepartmentofPedagogy ofthe University ofChicago and headed from 1896 to 1904 by John Dewey. The refrain of the song is shorthand for "Laboratory of the Department of Education." Although the school was officially called the University Elementary School, it became popularly known as the "Dewey School" or, on the sugg~stion of Ella Flagg Young, the "Laboratory School."2 Dewey himself often compared the function of this school in his d~partment to that of laboratories in biology, physics, or chemistry. "Like any such laboratory ," he said, "it has two main purposes: (I) to exhibit, test, verity, and criticize theoretical statements and principles; (2) to add to the sum of facts and principles in its specialline."3 Having a school to test educational theories and ideas suited Dewey's pragmatic temper nicely. He thought that "the mere profession ofprinciples without their practical exhibition and testing will not engage the respect of the educational profession" and that without such exhibition and testing, "the theoretical work partakes ofthe nature ofa farce and imposture-it is like professing to give 14 TII~ ulboralOty School '5 Spring planting for the younger students at Dewey's Laboratory School. Photograph courtesy of the Lander MacClintock Collection, Special Collections, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. "thorough training in a scicnce and then neglccting to providc a laboratory for faculty and studcnts 1 0 work in."4 Rather than separate the thcory from the practice, we should bring the two together. This will result in a more viable, realistic set of ideas and principles of education as well us give direction and guidance to our dlly-to-day educational activities. Dewey felt strongly that in education as in other areas of thought and action a well-ordered experiment requires that wIbere must be a continual union of theory and practice; of reaction of onc into the other. The leading idea must direct and clarify the work; the work must serve to criticize, to modify, to build up the theory,'" In pedagogy especially, Dewey felt that we must escape the dualism between gcneral principles and empiriclIl routine or rule of thumb and instead promote a "vital intcraction of theoretical principle and practical delail .'>6 How he saw this taking place he spellcd out in greater detail in an cssay entitled "'(1le Relations of TIlCOry lu Pr.w.:tice in Education.''7 Dewey distinguishes two ways to upproach pmctice in education: from the point of view of the apprentice and that of the laboratory. The apprentice approach would havc us seek to give tcnchcrs n working command ofthe tools of [23.22.236.90] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 09:52 GMT) 16 John Dewey their trade, a skill and proficiency in tcaching methods, a control of the techniques of class instruction and management. With the laboratory approach, we "use practice work as an instrument in making real and vital theoretical instructions; the knowledge of subject-matter and of principles of education."8 Here the immediate aim is not to produce cfficient workmen but to supply the intellectual methods and materials of good workmanship, just as in other professional schools (architecture, engineering, medicine, law, etc.) where the aim is "control ofthe intellectual methods required for personal and independent mastery ofpractical skill, rather than at turning out at once masters of the craft."9 Dewey always insisted that teaching is a profession, and the training of teachers should follow scientific lines. Too often it had been thought that "anybody -almost everybody-could teach. Everybody was innocent at least until proved guilty."10 The time had come to pay greater heed to the theory and practice of teaching. Although he favored the establishment of practice schools for tcachers, he recognized that most practice schools only approximate ordinary conditions of teaching and learning...