John Dewey y la Filosofía de la Educación

Episodios del programa “La aventura del pensamiento“, de Fernando Savater, dedicado al filósofo, psicólogo y pedagogo estadounidense John Dewey (1859 – 1952).

Parte I   -   Parte II   -   Parte III

Chomsky on Dewey

Communication, Modernity and Democracy in Habermas and Dewey

Alone among Frankfurt School critical theorists,  Habermas has critically appropriated pragmatist motifs. Although the Habermas-Dewey connection has been generally neglected,  significant similarities as well as important differences appear in their work. Both theorists share, with Aristotle, Mead, Gadamer, and other dialogical thinkers, the view that human beings are primarily speaking and socially interacting creatures.  Dewey asserted that society exists “by… and  in communication,” praising it as “the most wonderful” of all activities “by the side of which transubstantiation pales“.  For Habermas, too, communication is a central life activity and the fulcrum of his critical theory: “The utopian perspective of reconciliation and freedom is ingrained in the conditions of communicative sociation of individuals“.

Both theorists attack positivism, technocracy, and social domination, pointing to social forces that undermine the democratic potentialities of modern society.  They also criticize the modern philosophic tradition, especially the idealist philosophy of consciousness and its  subject/object dualism.  Both call for a reconstruction of philosophy and social theory, offering intersubjective alternatives based on their theories of communication. In addition, they call for a unification of theory and practice, providing systematic critiques of speculative, quietistic, and conformist thought as well as of conservative ideologies.  Following in the footsteps of Dewey, Habermas stresses uncoerced communication with the intent of upholding the progressive aspects of liberal social and political institutions  against their critics.

Read

Communication, Democratization, and Modernity – critical reflections on Habermas and Dewey

Alone among Frankfurt School critical theorists, Habermas has critically appropriated pragmatist motifs. Although the Habermas-Dewey connection has been generally neglected, significant similarities as well as important differences appear in their work. Both theorists share, with Aristotle, Mead, Gadamer, and other dialogical thinkers, the view that human beings are primarily speaking and socially interacting creatures. Dewey asserted that society exists “by… and in communication,” praising it as “the most wonderful” of all activities “by the side of which transubstantiation pales“. For Habermas, too, communication is a central life activity and the fulcrum of his critical theory: “The utopian perspective of reconciliation and freedom is ingrained in the conditions of communicative sociation of individuals“.

Read

The relations of Learning and Student Social Class – toward re-socializing Sociocultural Learning Theory

Although social groups have long been the subject of Vygotskian-inspired research, as in Luria’s early study of urban, rural and homeless children, there has been little work on low-income learners as a social group within the activity context of the school, particularly with the school understood as a social field in which social relations mediate learning.  As Dewey began urging over a century ago, educators must take more account of the social dimension in schooling, and a place to focus is on the social relations between students and teachers.  Similarly, feminists and many social scientists have criticized the absence of social considerations in numerous domains of study.  Although Vygotskian inspired approaches aim to situate the individual in social, cultural and historical context, I suggest that sociocultural approaches to learning give greater consideration also to the social conception of the learner and to the relations of learning if a fully adequate theory of learning is to be constructed for education.

Read

Method and its Culture – An Historical Approach

“Imposing an alleged uniform general method upon everybody breeds mediocrity” – Dewey. In the above quote, John Dewey, like others such as his contemporary A.N. Whitehead, worries about imposing a uniform general method––much akin to what educators do in “methods courses.”  Whitehead worried about this universalization of practical habits so much that he even railed against “good teaching”;  for such teaching, carrying with it the concept that “this and this are the right things to know,” rigidifies learning and creates “thought [that] is dead”. Building upon the quote already given, Dewey states that “to suppose that students … can be supplied with models of method to be followed … is to fall into a self-deception that has lamentable consequences”. And these consequences are those of “imposing intellectual blinders upon pupils––restricting their vision to the one path the teacher’s mind happens to approve”.

Read

Citizenship as Politics – International Perspectives From Adult Education

Citizenship is a contested terrain, very much linked to issues of power. The more progressive literature associates it with contributions made by individuals and groups/movements to the democratic public sphere. This entails an engagement in the ongoing struggle to safeguard public spaces from the onslaught of privatisation and commodification (Giroux, 2001). It also involves transforming hitherto undemocratic and exclusive structures into more democratic and inclusive ones. An education for citizenship, in  this context, is a democratic education, one in which students learn about democracy not simply by talking about it but by engaging in a democratic learning experience governed by non hierarchical social relations of education. This is in keeping with John Dewey’s over-arching concept of education for democracy.

The struggle for the democratization of educational opportunities is also connected to the issue of citizenship: the ability of more people to benefit from an education that provides not only the skills and competences to earn a decent living but also the disposition and critical literacy necessary to enable persons to contribute to the workings of an ever evolving democracy. In this regard we have been exposed to the idea of citizenship that is tied to not only notions of ‘thin democracy’ but, in a number of contexts, a much more robust sense of democracy, referred to as ‘thick  democracy’. The Porto Alegre experience of a participatory democracy centring round a participatory budget, and that entails a ‘deliberative democracy’, is in keeping with  the idea of a thick democracy.

Read