A Compendium Cum Evaluation On "Pragmatism and Education by Gerald Gutek"

Summary

Gutek, in his article, "Pragmatism and Education", provided a historical and scientific background to the flourishing of the Pragmatist perspective on education. He recognized that John Dewey's Pragmatism grew as an offshoot to Rousseau's Naturalism and Spencer's Social Darwinism. But along the way, Dewey's Pragmatist perspective evolved to achieve refinement with the incorporation into its system of Mead's experimental learning and advocacy of the Pragmatist view that learning has to be "directed toward social reforms".

Gutek offered that Pragmatism was a philosophical expression of America's "frontier experience" that provided for a re-qualification of success based on the repercussions that come as a result of their attempt to transform their different environments for varied human purposes. He stated that Pragmatism came into the picture at a time when Science has quantum-leaped the ushering in of a "technological society" that will become the defining force of the Twentieth Century.

Gutek's examination of Pragmatism centralizes on Dewey's Experimentalism or Instrumentalism. He submits that Dewey's approach to philosophy appropriates the employment of the Scientific Method. Consistent to this method are the identification of a problem or the recognition of a problematic situation, its definition and clarification, construction of a tentative hypothesis, and the actual experimentation process. Such clearly defined steps according to Dewey, approximates the occurrence in the individual of a genuine thought.

With science and its methodology knitted closely into the fabric of the Pragmatist perspective, gradual if not outright rejection of metaphysical absolutes and the "Doctrine of no change", became of paramount concern to the evolution of Pragmatism. Idealism was alternately complemented and supplanted with breakthrough ideas from the sciences. Gutek noted that coinciding with the birth of Dewey is the publication of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection". Darwin's scientific influence on Dewey can hardly be underestimated. Darwin's thesis on evolution stipulates that populations go through gradual change through time depending upon what becomes of their interaction with their environment.

The influence of evolutionary science to Dewey's Pragmatist perspective according to Gutek is best defined by considering the application of evolutionary principles to social situations. Here is when he noted Herbert Spencer's "Social Darwinism" which stipulates that "competition is a natural order of life".

Both Biological and Social Darwinism influenced Dewey in morphing out his Pragmatist perspective. Dewey believed that human beings, (more than the Rousseauean doctrine of becoming one with nature, or Spencer's fierce struggle with nature for survival), have to utilize nature to promote their advancement and welfare.

Dewey's Theory of Valuation sums it all. This theory is his attempt at unifying "aims, means, and ends". The premise here is that, one has to be accommodating of a broad spectrum of ideas that come from the individual's interaction with other individuals and with nature. On account of which, man accords himself with the means with which he places himself in a better position to make the most out of the interaction.

Implications For Education

In this section, Gutek outlined certain aspects of Dewey's educational philosophy ranging from the conservative and reconstructive processes of Experimentalist education to the forming of a democratic setting for education with the end-in-view of beefing up the curriculum to meet desirable educative outcomes.

Gutek noted that in Dewey's Democracy and Education, the learner is a legitimate participant within a cultural setting. his education comes from a conscious perception of nature without any reference to Idealist antecedents of truth. To learn from a pragmatist viewpoint therefore, is to understand nature through experience by the sensory organs.

Dewey's conservative and reconstructive concept of education posits that transmission of heritage has to proceed in the context of "cultural continuity". Within the society, Dewey claims that a learner can make use of the instrumentalities inherent to the group for the bifurcated purpose of liberating himself and defining his setting.

Education is recognized by Dewey as the "transmitter of the cultural heritage". Implicit to this, he claimed that a learner has to actively engage himself in the dynamism of a structured society - not necessarily to be imposed with strictures willed by the majority in the group and in the process lose his identity as in the Rousseauean sense, or to be locked in Spencerian struggle for social survival, but to be elemental in its definition, interactive in making it a better place to live in, and conscious of the available resources at his disposal that will be instrumental to his liberation.

Evaluation

The Pragmatist perspective is, to a large extent, an American philosophy whose system dates back to Greek thinking. Its widespread practice metamorphosed the entire system of Pragmatism into a multifaceted viewpoint subscribed to by proponents that are equally diverse in their regard of the Pragmatist perspective. Some think of it as a system of realistic idealism, others as a case of idealistic realism. Either way, adherents to this philosophy are one in saying that Pragmatism is but a new way of looking at old ideas in an effort to "do justice" to a broad spectrum of human experience.

The pragmatist is primarily concerned with the activity of knowing through the employment of the methods of science and the relationship of ideas to action. He claims that human beings can only be clear-headed about their ideas if and when the same ideas entail consequences that are material to him and are of certain practical purpose in the achievement of his "being".

Educationally, the methods of reflective thinking are fundamental to Pragmatism. Such methods provide for a framework in which reflection is complemented by action, or ideas being translated into practice.Others prefer to call it praxis which takes on the compromise between reflection (verbalism) and action (activism).

The Pragmatist perspective attempts to inculcate in the learner the judgments (and the parameters with which such judgments were arrived at) that men made to define the society (and the cultural heritage that was germinated from it) of which he is a part. This society is presumed to have promoted that interest and welfare of the members who are active participants.

Thus, in Dewey's Democracy and Education, Pragmatism placed emphases on the need for the learner to be able to solve problems that will be helpful to him. Moreover, ideas derived from the Experimentalist education has to cater to a certain social role that is receptive of social wants. And as society changes, the learner must keep himself apace with new developments by learning to be adaptive and interactive. There hardly is any fault to be found here given the conditions with which the Pragmatist perspective evolved and diversified.

It is therefore a matter of personal conviction to note how current educational systems have coped so well having subscribed to the Experimentalist framework of education.