In the Oct. 18 Sunday Monitor Forum, Joseph Mendola tells us that John Dewey, a prominent American intellectual of the early 20th century and a leader of the progressive educational movement, has taken our public schools down the wrong path.
Mendola writes that โthe purpose of these (progressive teaching) methods today is the social indoctrination of students into a collectivist (read Russian) economic system.โ Mendola concludes that โwe need to demand to have our teachers return to content-based education and abandon this โchild-centeredโ learning philosophy.โ
He makes this a politically charged position by incorrectly identifying Dewey and the Progressives of the 1920s with the Democratic progressives of today, and the champions of content-based education with Ronald Reagan and members of the Republican Party.
According to the Monitor, Mendola is a member of the School District Governance Association and a former member for the Kearsarge Regional School Board. So, he has graciously volunteered many hours to his community school and is acquainted with our school system in New Hampshire. He has thus demonstrated an active interest and concern in our schools and should be commended for this. My concern, however, is that Mendola has grossly misrepresented John Dewey and his insistence that we return to a content-based education is ill advised. Of course, you need to teach content, what we teach and how is the question.
John Dewey was a careful thinker and strongly advocated that schools need to prepare American citizens for active participation in a democratic society, not a servile role in a totalitarian state. This point is clearly stated in his seminal book Democracy and Education (1916) and restated in many of his other publications. His โchild-centeredโ focus was advanced as an improvement over authoritarian drilling and memorization, which characterized early schooling. Charles Dickens satirized this authoritarian method of teaching through the tragic character of Mr. Gradgrind in his book Hard Times.
When I was in school, I was taught โ read told and drilled โ that Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492. I was tested on this โfactโ and ridiculed by others if I could not answer questions requiring this โfact.โ No evidence was required of me to demonstrate such a fact. No discussion was given to what โdiscoveredโ meant and why this was important to know. It was only important that I could regurgitate what others told me. This was part of the indoctrination I and other students were subject to in school.
I agree with Mr. Mendola that in general we should educate and not indoctrinate. Our goal is not to have students believe some facts merely because someone in authority tells them so but to believe them for good reasons. This is also true when we engage in political discussions or decisions.
(E. Joseph Petrick is a former school board member of the Henniker Community School, John Stark Regional High School, and SAU 24.)