In our cog tools class we are reading John Dewey's book Democracy and Education and to tell you the truth it is such a hard book to get through. It is extremely dense, and I have to reread some parts because I start to notice that I have no idea what I just read. I know I just kind of ripped on the book, but it does have some really interesting points. Dewy talks about how education is focused on what we do not know, instead of what we do know. The teacher is not focused on what the child did correctly, but instead they get there confidence in learning lowered because the teacher is focused on what they did not fully perform correctly. He states that learning is done in an environment in which people learn from others around them that they can relate too. He uses clubs as an example of learning where you belong and who you are. I really enjoyed when he talked about how the most important thing we learn is who we are by figuring out which clubs we can and cannot relate too. It is like the old saying, "be careful who your children's friends hang out with." The company you keep is who you learn form, and who you start talking and acting like. This type of learning is continued and never forgotten.
Dewey loves using language as an example because it is one of the ways that proves that learning is mostly not conquered in the classroom. The way the education system is set up, there is a lot of memorizing, and then forgetting. When children learn new words or skills through there friends, or clubs those words are not forgotten. He talks a lot about language and how children learn a language from observing the company they keep. I am interested to see what the next chapters of Dewey have to teach me about where learning actually takes place.
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