Traditional Education And Traditional Views Of Education

Dewey (1997) in Experience and Education discusses two extremes in education, traditional education and progressive education. Extreme opposites of each other, these two forms of education carry their own positives and negatives. It can be said that the history of education is being opposed with the idea that education is the development from within. (Dewey, 1997, p. 17) Dewey discusses three important aspects of education and schooling. These are, the nature of knowledge and how it is understood, what sort of persons students are to become, and what sort of society appears to be promoted.

Traditional education can be seen as “…one of imposition from above and from outside. It imposes adult standards, subject-matter, and methods upon those who are only growing slowly toward maturity.” (Dewey, 1997, p. 19) Traditional education is very much shaped by its surrounding society, schools trying to do what they think society sees as “correct”. For example, the best form of learning was thought to be from direct instructions where the teacher is up in front of the class and students sitting at desks arranged in rows would be taking notes, learning through observations and listening. Rote learning was a very common form of learning, which students learnt the content through practice. Traditional teaching meant the teacher was in control at all times of the learning environment. They had all the power and huge responsibility, as they were ultimately the instructor and decision maker. “Teachers are the agents through which knowledge and skills are communicated and rules of conduct enforced.” (Dewey, 1997, p. 18) Traditional education saw the teacher as the facility for learning to occur. Traditional education aimed to prepare the young for ...

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...n. However, what is known about a progressive education is that it allows for everyone to think for himself or herself, giving freedom in allowing students to learn what they want to learn without having to justify why, whether it be right or wrong. Freedom for the sake of freedom is a poor philosophy of education. (Dewey, 1997, p. 22) And as much as we would all like to think of ourselves as open-minded, we will always be in some way prisoners of society with narrow conceptions of human capability. (Ayres, 2004, p. 140)

Ultimately educators are responsible for providing students with valuable experiences that should help the student in contributing to society. “As the most mature member of the group he has a peculiar responsibility for the conduct of the interaction and intercommunications which are the very life of the group as a community.” (Dewey, 1997, p. 58)