Educational Credo

A credo is a statement of belief. In the world of education, perhaps the most famous such statement comes from the great American philosopher John Dewey. In 1987 Dewey published, "My Pedagogic Creed". Here is the beginning of this seminal work.

Article I. What Education Is

I believe that all education proceeds by the participation of the individual in the social consciousness of the race. This process begins unconsciously almost at birth, and is continually shaping the individual's powers, saturating his consciousness, forming his habits, training his ideas, and arousing his feelings and emotions. Through this unconscious education the individual gradually comes to share in the intellectual and moral resources which humanity has succeeded in getting together. He becomes an inheritor of the funded capital of civilization. The most formal and technical education in the world cannot safely depart from this general process. It can only organize it; or differentiate it in some particular direction.

I believe that the only true education comes through the stimulation of the child's powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself. Through these demands he is stimulated to act as a member of a unity, to emerge from his original narrowness of action and feeling and to conceive of himself from the standpoint of the welfare of the group to which he belongs. Through the responses which others make to his own activities he comes to know what these mean in social terms. The value which they have is reflected back into them. For instance, through the response which is made of the child's instinctive babblings the child comes to know what those babblings mean; they are transformed into articulate language and thus the child is introduced into the consolidated wealth of ideas and emotions which are now summed up in language.

I believe that this educational process has two sides - one psychological and one sociological; and that neither can be subordinated to the other or neglected without evil results following. Of these two sides, the psychological is the basis. The child's own instincts and powers furnish the material and give the starting point for all education. Save as the efforts of the educator connect with some activity which the child is carrying on his own initiative independent of the educator, education becomes reduced to a pressure from without. It may, indeed, give certain external results but cannot truly be called educative. Without insight into the psychological structure and activities of the individual, the educative process will, therefore, be haphazard and arbitrary. If it chances to coincide with the child's activity it will get a leverage; if it does not, it will result in friction, or disintegration, or arrest of the child nature.

I believe that knowledge of social conditions, or the present state of civilization, is necessary in order properly to interpret the child's powers. The child has his own instincts and tendencies, but we do not know what these mean until we can translate them into their social equivalents. We must be able to carry them back into a social past and see them as the inheritance of previous race activities. We must also be able to project them into the future to see what their outcome and end will be. In the illustration just used, it is the ability to see in the child's babblings the promise and potency of a future intercourse and conversation which enables one to deal in the proper way with that instinct.

I believe that the psychological and social sides are organically related and that education cannot be regarded as a compromise between the two, or a superimposition of one upon the other. We are told that the psychological definition of education is barren and formal - that it gives us only the idea of a development of all the metal powers without giving us any idea of the use to which these powers are put. On the other hand, it is urged that the social definition of education, as getting adjusted to civilization, makes of it a forced and external process, and results in subordinating the freedom of the individual to a preconceived social and political status.

I believe each of these objections is true when urged against one side isolated from the other. In order to know what a power really is we must know what its end, use, or function is; and this we cannot know save as we conceive of the individual as active in social relationships. But, on the other hand, the only possible adjustment which we can give to the child under existing conditions, is that which arises through putting him in complete possession of all his powers. With the advent of democracy and modern industrial conditions, it is impossible to foretell definitely just what civilization will be twenty years from now. Hence it is impossible to prepare the child for any precise set of conditions. To prepare him for the future life means to give him command of himself; it means so to train him that he will have the full and ready use of all his capacities; that his eye and ear and hand may be tools ready to command, that his judgement may be capable of grasping the conditions under which it has to work, and the executive forces be trained to act economically and efficiently. It is impossible to read this sort of adjustment save as constant regard is had to the individual's own powers, tastes, and interests - say, that is, as education is continually converted into psychological terms.

In sum, I believe that the individual who is to be educated is a social individual and that society is an organic union of individuals. If we eliminate the social factor from the child we are left only with an abstraction; if we eliminate the individual factor from society, we are left only with an inert and lifeless mass. Education, therefore, must begin with a psychological insight into the child's capacities, interests, and habits. It must be controlled at every point by reference to these same considerations. These powers, interests, and habits must be continually interpreted - we must know what they mean. They must be translated into terms of their social equivalents - into terms of what they are capable of in the way of social service.

You may find the rest of Dewey's credo here.

The comments section contains credos students created for a class assignment. The assignment was as follows:

Your credo will be an articulation of what you believe the purpose of education and/or schooling is and/or should be. This is your opportunity to explain your personal philosophy of the aims of education and/or schooling. Simply tell me what you think the purpose of education/schooling is.

President Obama's Message for America's Students

Much was made of President Obama's speech to school children on September 8, 2009. In case you missed it, here it is. The transcript may be found here.



The comment section contains TAL 101 students' reactions to and reflections on the President's speech, the media firestorm over the event, and more.

Healthcare and education

The debate on health care reform is in the news a lot lately. Unfortunately, not a lot of this time is spent talking about actual health-related issues. Whatever your position is related to how health coverage should be provided, how it should be paid for, and who should have access, one thing that is clear - the United States is becoming an increasingly unhealthy nation.

While it is important to talk about issues like smoking, exercising, eating habits, mental and emotional health, and so on, it is also important that we expand our horizons and discuss matters than are typically not talked about when it comes to discussions on health. Chief among these is the relationships between education and health.

On September 9th the Commission to Build a Healthier America, supported and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, published an issue brief focused on education and health. Chief among the findings discussed in the brief are as follows:

A large body of evidence links education with health, even when other factors like income are taken into account.

People with more education are likely to live longer and experience better health outcomes.

Educational attainment among adults is linked with children’s health as well, beginning early in life.

The United States is the only industrialized nation where young people currently are less likely than members of their parents’ generation to be high-school graduates.

Education is linked with health through three major interrelated pathways: health knowledge and behaviors, employment and income, and social and psychological factors.

More education can lead to higher-paying jobs, which enable people to obtain health care when needed, provide themselves and their families with more nutritious foods, and live in safer and healthier homes and neighborhoods with supermarkets, parks and places to exercise—all of which can promote good health by making it easier to adopt and maintain healthy behaviors.

Social and psychological factors linked with education can influence health through pathways related to stress, health-related behaviors, and practical and emotional support.

Parents’ educational attainment is linked to their children’s health and their children’s educational attainment—both of which influence their children’s health as adults.

The level of educational attainment children eventually achieve also affects the health of their own children—perpetuating a vicious intergenerational cycle of low educational attainment and poorer health.

By providing the knowledge and skills necessary to fully participate in the labor force, education can be key in promoting social mobility and in breaking the cycle of intergenerational disadvantage and related health disparities.

A link to the entire issue brief can be found here.