Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education

The second chapter offers additional specificity about the relationship between education and society. Dewey continues to raise philosophical questions and explain what some of the given concepts such as “environment” mean. He asserts that schools are places where formal education must idealize the existing customs and must broaden and balance the environment. He divides this chapter into four sections.

1. The Nature and Meaning of Environment

First, Dewey traces the socialization process by which society converts “seemingly alien beings into robust trustees of its own resources and ideals” (7). Etymologically, the term “education” has meanings that include the idea of bringing up—that is, a sociological component is embedded in the word itself.

Dewey differentiates between the immediate environments of inanimate objects and living things and the fact that only the latter show concern about the way the environment affects them. The environment, therefore, comprises “those conditions that promote or hinder, stimulate, or inhibit, the characteristic activities of a living being” (9). Dewey narrows down the scope of his philosophic inquiry; he began by analyzing the purpose of society at large, but here he is interested in the specific social environment that shapes human beings. The idea that society shapes individuals is not new. However, by the 20th century, such examinations began to include a greater diversity of factors such as ideology and mass media.

2. The Social Environment

One’s immediate social environment depends on a multitude of factors including approvals, demands, and condemnations. The social environment is also reciprocal. One of its most important aspects is “how the social medium nurtures its immature members” (9). Here, Dewey underscores his professional interest in behavior-related questions. He explains the way in which people condition domestic animals by invoking habit formation like a rat in a maze seeking food in a specific place. He compares these to modifications to elicit specific behavior in humans through habit formation.

Several scientists were studying behaviorism and other relevant questions in psychology, physiology, and related fields while Dewey was writing. In 1896, he published an article "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology" in which he discussed reflexes (actions carried out in response to a particular stimulus). A year later, the Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov published his findings about using classical conditioning on dogs.

Dewey proceeds to discuss instincts, responses to pain and pleasure stimuli, and the differences between training and education. For example, education does not simply involve training but making the participant feel that success in a specific activity of a social group is his personal success.

Furthermore, language plays a principal role in the acquisition of knowledge. Dewey examines the way linguistic skills develop from birth to adulthood. He asserts that the meaning of language “depends upon connection with a shared experience” (11). Using language to obtain or share ideas is only meaningful in a social setting. The latter is one of the reasons why Dewey underscores the social element in education reform.

3. The Social Medium as Educative

At this stage of the investigation, Dewey concludes that “the social environment forms the mental and emotional disposition of behavior in individuals by engaging them in activities that arouse the strengthen certain impulses” (12). In this context, things that are “strange or foreign” become “morally forbidden” or “intellectual suspect” (13). In other words, things that are outside the group activities of a social group turn into social taboos whether for prehistoric humans or their modern counterparts. The impact of the social environment manifests in such areas as language, manners, and taste. For example, taste does not appear on its own but is a result of social conditioning, according to Dewey.

4. The School as a Special Environment

Education must not only come from the formal school setting but from controlling the environment and the type of influences it provides. In this way, “an intelligent home differs from an unintelligent one” by thinking of the way the environment impacts the children (15). Dewey’s text is not a teaching manual. However, he periodically makes suggestions for parents and caregivers.

In this framework, the school becomes a “special mode of social intercourse” (15). The school has three key functions. First, the information about complex civilizations must be split into parts to be absorbed. Second, it is the school’s responsibility to “eliminate so far as possible, the unworthy features of the existing environment from influences upon mental habitudes” (15). The question about the extent to which schools must mold children continues to be debated even in the 21st century. Some believe that the primary responsibility lies with the family. Here, Dewey argues that it is the formal educational institution that bears much of this responsibility. Considering the amount of time that children spend at school every week, it follows that educational institutions indeed at least share this aspect. Third, schools must “balance the various elements in the social environment” (16). For example, modern societies like the United States are diverse thanks to the development of trade and transportation. As a result, people from different ethnocultural backgrounds live in the same country. Therefore, Dewey believes that educational institutions must balance out these influences.

In “Education as Direction,” Dewey continues to narrow down the scope of his inquiry. Here, he focuses on the directional purpose of education. He differentiates between aimless learning and learning for learning’s sake and what he considers the true goal of education, to provide guidance to the younger generation.

1. The Environment as Directive.

Education offers guidance and control. However, the latter is not coercive but rather provides direction. Dewey criticizes the view that humans are naturally individualistic in that they are anti-social. In contrast, he reasserts his suggestion that humans are naturally social, communal creatures despite occasionally acting egotistically. Overall, humans are “chiefly interested upon the whole, in entering into the activities of others and taking part in conjoint and cooperative doings” (18).

What emerges is a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, the environment cannot provide “purely external direction” but can only supply certain stimuli (19). The individual then uses these stimuli because he already has certain tendencies to do so. On the other hand, “the control afforded by the customs and regulations of others may be short-sighted” (20). Here, Dewey appears to be in line with what the sociologist Karl Mannheim later termed a total ideology—the sum of customs, laws, rules, beliefs, political views, and other formative aspects acting upon a person to shape his worldview. Dewey believes this external control to be limited. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to the “sequential development” of those being directed (20).

2. Modes of Social Direction

Next, Dewey identifies different modes of social direction. The first mode is directing others to do something when they are not doing it or even being disobedient. Children’s inappropriate behavior is an obvious example. The second mode is teaching others how to use things. This mode is an important aspect of a social environment. At times, this type of teaching occurs through personal influence as little as a word of encouragement. Children also learn by observing adults and mimicking their behavior underscoring the social aspect of this type of interaction.

There is an important distinction between physical and mental stimuli in which “the latter involves response to a thing in its meaning” (22). The mental aspect is important because having “the same ideas about things which others have, to be “like-minded with them” is about attaching “the same meanings to things and acts which others attach” (23). The physical aspect has no influence on the mind except for implicating “in action for prospective consequences” (24). For example, a hungry child may identify his own state of hunger when watching his food being prepared and develop a particular attitude toward it rather than solely reacting to his discomfort.

Dewey reiterates the importance of language as the link between individuals in a shared situation. Language is unrivaled in providing social direction. However, it is the mind that allows humans to learn new tasks—mental and physical. In this context, it is the mind that is “the method of social control” (26).

3. Imitation and Social Psychology

There are different theories about the psychology of learning. One theory posits that individuals possess an “instinctive tendency” to “copy the actions of others” (26). Dewey argues that this theory is limiting because it does not explain why people imitate others. One explanation could be the “mental satisfaction found in being in conformity with others” (26). However, the explanation may be simpler: humans are “alike in structure” and thus “respond in the same way to like stimuli” (27). In reality, “the effect of imitation is mainly the product of conscious instruction and of the selective influence exercised by the unconscious confirmations and ratifications of those with whom one associates” (27). There are also different types of imitation, one of ends and one of means.

4. Some Applications to Education

Finally, Dewey asks why “savages” perpetuate “savagery,” whereas civilized groups perpetuate civilization. He argues that this behavior is not the result of their mental capacity, any difference in which is insufficient to “account for a difference in culture” (28). Dewey argues that the difference lies in the fact that “savages” deal with “crude stimuli,” whereas civilized people rely on “weighted stimuli” (29).

Dewey argues that human civilization comprises many positive stimuli such as roads, electricity, and machines. They function based on a body of knowledge that is transmitted through education. Products and machines produced by civilization act as the “chief protection” against superstitions of the past. In this context, schools act as the key disseminators of knowledge.

In this section, it is unclear whether Dewey is talking about “savages” as human prehistoric ancestors or modern groups outside European civilization. He is discussing them in the present tense and mentions having them studied, which may imply that he means the latter. If so, then he relies on theories typical for time based on the idea of unidirectional technological progress, including racial hierarchy. Such theories asserted that non-Europeans were behind Europeans in their development because all cultures and peoples were believed to develop along the same trajectory. Some of the more extreme eugenic counterparts asserted wide differences in human intelligence solely based on race. However, Dewey does not resort to biological determinism when he mentions that the main difference between “savages” and the “civilized” (to whom he refers as “us”) is in the type of stimuli that their environment offers rather than intelligence levels.

The fourth chapter examines the link between mental growth and socialization. Dewey underscores the fact that childhood that provides the greatest capacity for growth, development, absorption of information, and plasticity. Childhood is also the time when many habits form. Active habits are especially important in this context because they include thinking and being a self-starter, i.e., using one’s capacity for new goals. Dewey divides this chapter into three sections.

1. The Conditions of Growth

The future of a society depends on the way its young are raised and educated. Dewey positions children’s immaturity as a positive factor because children have the capacity for growth and development. Children’s “native mechanism” is that of “social responsiveness” (33). The young’s dependence is also positive; it is interdependence, one of the basic features of society. Excessive individuality, in contrast, may lead to indifference and egotism. In fact, prolonged infancy acts as a “stimulus to nurture and affection” (35). Immaturity has plasticity, but this is not the kind of plasticity that changes form based on external force. Instead, this plasticity is “the ability to learn from experience” (34). To Dewey, learning from experience is one of the central aspects of education.

2. Habits as Expressions of Growth

Habit formation is linked to plasticity, in which a habit is “an ability to use natural conditions as means to ends” (35). Indeed, some define education as “the acquisition of those habits that effect an adjustment of an individual and his environment” (35). Dewey differentiates between active and relatively passive habits (habituation). However, any habit “marks an inclination—an active preference and choice for the conditions involved in its exercise” (37). Eventually, some habits degenerate into “routine ways of acting” (37). For this reason, it is important for social environments to foster the “full use of intelligence”, that is, critical thinking (37).

3. The Educational Bearings of the Conception of Development

Finally, Dewey identifies the key aspects of development. First, development is “the direction of power into special channels” (38), such as the formation of interests and habits. Both children and adults grow and develop. Second, “there is nothing to which education is subordinate save more education” (39). In other words, the purpose of receiving a formal education in school is to set one up for pursuing more education and intellectual growth in the future. According to Dewey, “life is growth” (40).