ahead of his time

One could think of this phrase in many different ways: a musician who creates music that is not appreciated at first listen or even in their day (but is eventually respected worldwide), an artist who has a strikingly different technique or style (that doesn’t become applauded until long after their death), a political movement that appears radical when initially taking place (but is large part of everyday life given time), and John Dewey’s ideology that supports technology in the classroom (although what we think of as technology in the classroom did not exist yet).

Okay, John Dewey wasn’t exactly pushing for computers, televisions, and iPads in the classroom, but he had a strong opinion about what would create a better education. To prepare for class this week we were asked to read My Pedagogic Creed by John Dewey and John Dewey: A Significant Contributor to the Field of Educational Technology by Peter Rich and Thomas C. Reeves. When I think of John Dewey, I think of a well-known intellectual, a great philosopher – not one of the ‘founding fathers’ for the ideology behind educational technologies, as the article by Peter Rich and Thomas C. Reeves does.

The point that really struck me about Dewey’s views of education and it’s relation to technology was the same question that keeps crossing my mind:

“Does technology in the classroom take away from the people to people interactions and relationships?”

To my unexpected surprise, the Peter Rich and Thomas C. Reeves article suggested a good viewpoint based on Dewey’s ideas. They talked about how technology should be used to allow for experiencing in the classroom. In My Pedagogic Creed, Dewey expressed that experiences were main components to a better education. When originally reading this, I had thought of experiences as being between people and in nature or the “real world”. One of the great abilities of educational technologies are that they can bring experiences into the classroom – experiences that students may otherwise not have. It was interesting to start to think about technology as an experience too. The article also brings to light the idea that Dewey believed in independent thinking but not the elimination of the teacher. His thoughts are that the teachers are to serve as a guide. In My Pedagogic Creed he states “The teacher is not in the school to impose certain ideas or to form certain habits in the child, but there as a member of the community to select the influences which shall affect the child and to assist him in properly responding to these influences.” Based upon this statement of Dewey’s and the article, it seems to me that technology can be a means for experiencing (or being the influence in the child’s education) and that the relationships in the classroom will not necessarily be lost because the teacher will act as a guide for helping students to navigate these influences (or educational technologies). Thinking about educational technologies from this viewpoint helped to ease some of the apprehensions I have about technology in the classroom.

So no, Dewey had no idea of what the future and technology in classroom would consist of but his beliefs about experience being central to learning appear to be similar to those who design educational technologies today. In this sense, I think it’s fair to say Dewey was ahead of his time.