[MD] Barfuersserkirche (ZMM & Dewey)

[Dan Glover]

Hi Arlo

I hope you don't mind; I took the liberty of breaking your post in two. I'm 
really quite impressed with John Dewey and I may have gone a bit overboard, 
but - oh well. Thank you for bringing him to our attention. I've read 
Democracy and Education and made some notes on certain passages that I'd 
like to share. I've also combined it with some (of what I feel to be) 
pertinent extracts from ZMM. Please feel free to add to, subtract from, or 
just generally ignore. It's all good.

>From: Arlo Bensinger <ajb102 at psu.edu>
>Reply-To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
>To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
>Subject: [MD] Barfuersserkirche (The Role of the Academy)
>Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2006 09:30:47 -0400
>
[snip]
>
>Dewey maintained that there are four primary (and social) functions served
>by The Academy: the habits of language, manners, good taste and esthetic
>appreciation, and deeper standards of judgements of value (which is a
>fusion of the prior two). (Democracy and Education, Chapter 2,
>http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/socl/education/DemocracyandEducation/chap2.html).
>Of the third and fourth points, Dewey writes, "If the eye is constantly
>greeted by harmonious objects, having elegance of form and color, a
>standard of taste naturally grows up. The effect of a tawdry, unarranged,
>and over-decorated environment works for the deterioration of taste, just
>as meager and barren surroundings starve out the desire for beauty. Against
>such odds, conscious teaching can hardly do more than convey second-hand
>information as to what others think. Such taste never becomes spontaneous
>and personally engrained, but remains a labored reminder of what those
>think to whom one has been taught to look up. To say that the deeper
>standards of judgments of value are framed by the situations into which a
>person habitually enters is not so much to mention a fourth point, as it is
>to point out a fusion of those already mentioned. We rarely recognize the
>extent in which our conscious estimates of what is worth while and what is
>not, are due to standards of which we are not conscious at all. But in
>general it may be said that the things which we take for granted without
>inquiry or reflection are just the things which determine our conscious
>thinking and decide our conclusions." (The entirety of Democracy and
>Education is available off that link).

This seems very similar to the beginning of Phaedrus's search for Quality. 
The Academy was that specially selected environment, and there he was, 
putting in his time, teaching a course that his contract with the state of 
Montana required him to teach. But something wasn't right, even though he 
couldn't quite put his finger on what it was:

"What was depressing was that the text was one of the most rational texts 
available on the subject of rhetoric and it still didn’t seem right. 
Moreover he had access to the authors, who were members of the department. 
He had asked and listened and talked and agreed with their answers in a 
rational way but somehow still wasn’t satisfied with them.

"The text started with the premise that if rhetoric is to be taught at all 
at a University level it should be taught as a branch of reason, not as a 
mystic art. Therefore it emphasized a mastery of the rational foundations of 
communication in order to understand rhetoric. Elementary logic was 
introduced, elementary stimulus-response theory was brought in, and from 
these a progression was made to an understanding of how to develop an essay.

"For the first year of teaching Phædrus had been fairly content with this 
framework. He felt there was something wrong with it, but that the wrongness 
was not in this application of reason to rhetoric. The wrongness was in the 
old ghost of his dreams...rationality itself. He recognized it as the same 
wrongness that had been troubling him for years, and for which he had no 
solutions. He just felt that no writer ever learned to write by this 
squarish, by-the-numbers, objective, methodical approach. Yet that was all 
rationality offered and there was nothing to do about it without being 
irrational And if there was one thing he had a clear mandate to do in this 
Church of Reason it was to be rational, so he had to let it go at that.

"A few days later when Sarah trotted by again she stopped and said, "I’m so 
happy you’re teaching Quality this quarter. Hardly anybody is these days."

"Well, I am," he said. "I’m definitely making a point of it."

"Good!" she said, and trotted on.

"He returned to his notes but it wasn’t long before thought about them was 
interrupted by a recall of her strange remark. What the hell was she talking 
about? Quality? Of course he was teaching Quality. Who wasn’t? He continued 
with the notes." (ZMM)

Of course we find out that the question would be better put: who WAS 
teaching Quality? Not: who wasn't. Because if you can't define it, how are 
you going to teach it?

"Schools are, indeed, one important method of the transmission which forms 
the dispositions of the immature; but it is only one means, and, compared 
with other agencies, a relatively superficial means. Only as we have grasped 
the necessity of more fundamental and persistent modes of tuition can we 
make sure of placing the scholastic methods in their true context." 
(Democracy and Education, chapter 3)

Now this is interesting! The Academy is a relatively superficial means to an 
education compared to other agencies. Really! But what does he mean - other 
agencies? If "other agencies" are better, why aren't they used instead of 
the Academy?

"As a result of his experiments he concluded that imitation was a real evil 
that had to be broken before real rhetoric teaching could begin. This 
imitation seemed to be an external compulsion. Little children didn’t have 
it. It seemed to come later on, possibly as a result of school itself.

"That sounded right, and the more he thought about it the more right it 
sounded. Schools teach you to imitate. If you don’t imitate what the teacher 
wants you get a bad grade. Here, in college, it was more sophisticated, of 
course; you were supposed to imitate the teacher in such a way as to 
convince the teacher you were not imitating, but taking the essence of the 
instruction and going ahead with it on your own. That got you A’s. 
Originality on the other hand could get you anything...from A to F. The 
whole grading system cautioned against it." (ZMM)

The Academy teaches imitation! The entire structure of the Academy is built 
around a grading system to tell the strong students from the weak. So by 
getting away from such a structure, real learning will perhaps stand a 
chance of occurring, at least in theory.

"All communication is like art. It may fairly be said, therefore, that any 
social arrangement that remains vitally social, or vitally shared, is 
educative to those who participate in it. Only when it becomes cast in a 
mold and runs in a routine way does it lose its educative power." (Democracy 
and Education, chapter 3)

And the grading system is the mold in which all students are cast, top to 
bottom. Groups are established, cliques are formed, exclusive clubs.

"Conscious instruction plays a part; prior approvals and disapprovals have a 
large influence. Still more effective is the fact that unless an individual 
acts in the way current in his group, he is literally out of it. He can 
associate with others on intimate and equal terms only by behaving in the 
way in which they behave." (Ibid, Chapter 3)

These approvals and disapprovals, they occur through the grading system. 
Let's say we were to remove the influence of the grading system... what 
would happen then?

"Phædrus’ argument for the abolition of the degree-and- grading system 
produced a nonplussed or negative reaction in all but a few students at 
first, since it seemed, on first judgment, to destroy the whole University 
system. One student laid it wide open when she said with complete candor, 
"Of course you can’t eliminate the degree and grading system. After all, 
that’s what we’re here for."

"She spoke the complete truth. The idea that the majority of students attend 
a university for an education independent of the degree and grades is a 
little hypocrisy everyone is happier not to expose. Occasionally some 
students do arrive for an education but rote and the mechanical nature of 
the institution soon converts them to a less idealistic attitude." (ZMM)

The truth begins to emerge. The Academy isn't about educating students so 
much as it's about ranking them, ordering them, according to each other.

"Intentional education signifies, as we have already seen, a specially 
selected environment, the selection being made on the basis of materials and 
method specifically promoting growth in the desired direction." (Democracy 
and Education, chapter 3)

The Academy seeks to promote student growth in a desired direction by 
ranking them, by grading them on their habits of language and good manners, 
if not explicitly, then implicitly. To do so, students are molded to a 
desired end. Integrated and indoctrinated. Take away the grading system and 
what happens?

"Phædrus thought withholding grades was good, according to his notes, but he 
didn’t give it scientific value. In a true experiment you keep constant 
every cause you can think of except one, and then see what the effects are 
of varying that one cause. In the classroom you can never do this. Student 
knowledge, student attitude, teacher attitude, all change from all kinds of 
causes which are uncontrollable and mostly unknowable. Also, the observer in 
this case is himself one of the causes and can never judge his effects 
without altering his effects. So he didn’t attempt to draw any hard 
conclusions from all this, he just went ahead and did what he liked.

"The movement from this to his enquiry into Quality took place because of a 
sinister aspect of grading that the withholding of grades exposed. Grades 
really cover up failure to teach. A bad instructor can go through an entire 
quarter leaving absolutely nothing memorable in the minds of his class, 
curve out the scores on an irrelevant test, and leave the impression that 
some have learned and some have not. But if the grades are removed the class 
is forced to wonder each day what it’s really learning. The questions, 
What’s being taught? What’s the goal? How do the lectures and assignments 
accomplish the goal? become ominous. The removal of grades exposes a huge 
and frightening vacuum.

"What was Phædrus trying to do, anyway? This question became more and more 
imperative as he went on. The answer that had seemed right when he started 
now made less and less sense. He had wanted his students to become creative 
by deciding for themselves what was good writing instead of asking him all 
the time. The real purpose of withholding the grades was to force them to 
look within themselves, the only place they would ever get a really right 
answer.

"But now this made no sense. If they already knew what was good and bad, 
there was no reason for them to take the course in the first place. The fact 
that they were there as students presumed they did not know what was good or 
bad. That was his job as instructor...to tell them what was good or bad. The 
whole idea of individual creativity and expression in the classroom was 
really basically opposed to the whole idea of the University." (ZMM)

Until now it seemed as though the student was being molded by the Academy 
but now we're seeing that the instructors are also being molded, and that by 
withholding grades, the deficiencies of the instructors are unveiled - the 
deeper standards of judgements of value that makes the whole Academy go 
round.

"The most important problem of moral education in the school concerns the 
relationship of knowledge and conduct. For unless the learning which accrues 
in the regular course of study affects character, it is futile to conceive 
the moral end as the unifying and culminating end of education." (Democracy 
and Education, chapter 26)

In the Academy, the grading system is the relationship between knowledge and 
conduct, not only for the students but for the teachers as well. In fact, a 
case could be made that grades are more important to the teachers.

"The emphasis in school upon this particular tool has, however, its dangers 
-- dangers which are not theoretical but exhibited in practice. Why is it, 
in spite of the fact that teaching by pouring in, learning by a passive 
absorption, are universally condemned, that they are still so entrenched in 
practice? That education is not an affair of "telling" and being told, but 
an active and constructive process, is a principle almost as generally 
violated in practice as conceded in theory. Is not this deplorable situation 
due to the fact that the doctrine is itself merely told?" (Democracy and 
Education)

We know from ZMM that grading is a measuring tool and that's why it 
contiually hangs on even though its dangers are well known.

What is the ideal Academy like? Like climbing a mountain, and:

"Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without 
desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you 
become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the 
mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when 
you’re no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn’t just a means to an end 
but a unique event in itself. This leaf has jagged edges. This rock looks 
loose. From this place the snow is less visible, even though closer. These 
are things you should notice anyway. To live only for some future goal is 
shallow. It’s the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. 
Here’s where things grow.

"But of course, without the top you can’t have any sides. It’s the top that 
defines the sides. So on we go—we have a long way—no hurry—just one step 
after the next—with a little Chautauqua for entertainment. Mental reflection 
is so much more interesting than TV it’s a shame more people don’t switch 
over to it. They probably think what they hear is unimportant but it never 
is." (ZMM)

Climbing a mountain requires the strength of youth and a power to grow. 
That:

"Power to grow depends upon need for others and plasticity. Both of these 
conditions are at their height in childhood and youth. Plasticity or the 
power to learn from experience means the formation of habits. Habits give 
control over the environment, power to utilize it for human purposes. Habits 
take the form both of habituation, or a general and persistent balance of 
organic activities with the surroundings, and of active capacities to 
readjust activity to meet new conditions. The former furnishes the 
background of growth; the latter constitute growing. Active habits involve 
thought, invention, and initiative in applying capacities to new aims. They 
are opposed to routine which marks an arrest of growth. Since growth is the 
characteristic of life, education is all one with growing; it has no end 
beyond itself. The criterion of the value of school education is the extent 
in which it creates a desire for continued growth and supplies means for 
making the desire effective in fact." (Democracy and Education)

Habits are good until they become routine, then rather than fostering 
growth, habits inhibit growth. Active habits on the other hand are Dynamic 
in that they encourage continual learning and fostering the abilities to 
meet new conditions in the ever-changing environment that constitutes the 
real world.

[snip]

>
>Are we fooling ourselves into thinking The Academy is anything more than a
>hammer of conformity, smashing us into pegs to meet the contemporary labor
>activity required by society? Is it, as Dewey suggested, from engagement in
>The Academy that we learn to value harmony, elegance and beauty as those
>are culturally defined? (Is there a distinction between these two
>statements, or do they say the same thing??). What would be the Ideal
>version of The Academy? Or, in the Ideal, would The Academy vanish?

We need to get to them earlier. Much, much earlier. What I mean to say is, I 
hear a lot of talk about MOQ primers and LILA guidebooks but I think the 
real problem is that by the time a person goes through a formal education 
process their thinking is pretty much set in stone. Is reading a book, any 
book, really going to change their minds? Perhaps one time in a hundred, or 
even one time in a thousand?

So I've been thinking: why not a children's book on the MOQ? Get to them 
while they're young and it's easier to twist their pliable little minds... 
er, I mean... to educate them.

Thank you for your comments,

Dan





In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart
>From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.

(Dylan Thomas)