Education and Living

For class today, we read an article by John Dewey called "My Pedagogic Creed." In it, he wrote something that really stuck with me. He said, "I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living. I think this is a vitally important lesson that I, as a teacher, can aim to instill in my students.

Many people consider education a way of preparing for the future. They see education as a way to get a good job and make a good living. Even I was victim to this idea that what we learn in school is only preparing us for ACTs, SATs, and college admissions interviews. But, the truth it, we should be actively participating in life every single day. We should be taking the knowledge we learn and using it in the world. Experimenting. Exploring. We should wait until we've graduated and moved on to the "real world" to take advantage of it.

Dewey also says that, "I believe that, as such simplified social life, the school life should grow gradually out of the home life; that it should take up and continue the activities with which the child is already familiar in the home." I feel as though this is also an extremely important point for teachers to grasp. Without trying to understand students' home life and experiences, we cannot form our classes in a way that will be most beneficial to our students.

It is also important, though, that parents try to actively participate with teachers in order to create a mutual understanding and foster a positive educational environment for the students. When teachers and parents work together, the parents can try to emulate some of the social and academic concepts that the students are learning in their classrooms. Similarly, if teachers work with parents to understand the student's home life, they can try to create a classroom that is understanding of the student's needs.

While it might be a stretch to assume that we can create a close bond between teachers and parents, it is worth trying for and worth working at. If we can accomplish that, I believe we will be able to accomplish many of the tasks that Dewey hints towards in his Pedagogic Creed.