Philosophy 170 Course Notes
Democracy and Education

Copyright 1999-2000 by Tad Beckman, Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711

Dewey was a passionate democrat and absolutely believed that successful democracy depends upon the educational development of its people. How else can people rule themselves unless they have the intelligence to produce good laws and make sound judgments? Education, of course, is not merely "formal education," as Dewey points out at the book's beginning. Education is growth and development throughout life, both before and after any formal component. At best and taken reciprocally, democracy should be an educating social system; that is, life in a democratic society should contribute to the growth and development of its citizens. The very act of self government should both require education and lead to further education; it is a reciprocal arrangement.

When we understand this passion for democracy, what other factors must fall into place to realize it? And since America prides itself as a democratic society, how well have we succeeded in this realization? While Dewey was still optimistic at the time of writing this book, he had clear misgivings about the direction of American democracy by the time he wrote Freedom and Culture. Today, I suspect, he would be extremely disturbed.

One final introductory observation should be made. This is a long book and Dewey goes into unimaginable detail on issues that we can easily judge as minor or even peripheral. Why should we read all of this? The answer is that this represents the way Dewey thought philosophy should be done. When we have separated philosophy from systems of authority and from rationalized systems of metaphysics and from all other versions of thought-by-first-principles, and when we have committed philosophy to the active discussion of collective activity, we need to make discussion thoroughly articulate. We need to expand language and create distinctions, arrange subdivisions and issues, formulate points of view, and suggest directions. Taking two large subjects like democracy and education, this commits us to quite a long and complex text. There is simply very much to discuss. It is a book that one may want to pick one's way through, guided by one's own immediate interests and concerns. In this Dewey himself could only be pleased.

We do not have to get very far into this book before we understand that democracy and education are reciprocal ideas. It is the democrat who conceives of education as a process leading to individual growth and development rather than to brainwashing or purely training for some limited tasks. It is the educator who conceives of democracy as a social system that not only encourages individual growth but, in fact, offers the individual a context of free and stimulating intercourse with others, in which that growth is possible. Democracy is not merely a system of government; it is a pervasive system of social organization. That system promotes an open society in which people can merge their activities with others and experience a stimulating mixture of cultural perspectives and human interests. It is the ultimate social experiment in that sense that individuals have the opportunity of challenging values and aims, working collectively toward uncertain results, and discussing new approaches when the results are in. Formal education is only a part of this lifelong process and it's roles are, first, to set us on constructive paths and, second, to show us the process that should become habit. Educational practice, then, is really equivalent to philosophical methodology, in Dewey's mind. It is in educational institutions that we should learn as habit the "love of wisdom" that philosophy is -- not love for any particular subject area or body of content but rather love for the process, for engagement with others in serious discussion.

With this much said, we might profitably ask where Dewey might stand on the larger-than-life aspects of contemporary American society? Consider the state of affairs in modern families where children often have little contact with parents or other adults, the methods of instruction in most formal school systems, the failure of urban and suburban centers of population to provide "community," the economic system that degrades "work" into "labor" and even then offers rewards to only a small percentage of the total population and allows millions of people to live well below the so-called poverty line. Consider the rampant prejudices of gender, race, and ethnicity that inhibit productive social contact, the media which avoids "informing" and, instead, merely "entertains." Consider on top of these issues the lack of real contact with government and the fact that self-governance has become a farce. I think that we can, indeed, imagine what Dewey would think about these. But what Dewey would not imagine and would think very badly of is the simple fact that Americans don't even seem to care about it.