John Dewey and The Schoolhouse Experimentation

Short Paper

Of the teachers I have spoken with most have agreed that the common core has been rushed, with not enough time and/or money to adequately prepare. The goal was a noble one – to have the United States a global leader in education. But the curriculum was basically just dumped in the teacher’s laps. Testing the system in a select few school districts would have been a better way to gradually implement the new curriculum.

John Dewey’s progressive thoughts on education influenced American educators and the Common Core proves that Dewey’s philosophy still penetrates the America’s school system. Dewey was in favor of “schoolhouse experimentation,” meaning that educators should continually reject old methods in favor of new ones. The Common Core can be seen as this type of experimentation, leaving some educators to complain that “we are a nation of guinea pigs.”

Dewey also argued for standardized curriculum to prevent one student from becoming superior to others and to train all students “for leadership as well as obedience.” Dewey envisioned a workforce filled with people of “politically and socially correct attitudes” who would respond to orders without question. But will it also produce a workforce of men and women capable of independent analysis and creative problem solving?

As a student who was homeschooled for almost all of my middle school years, I was particularly interested in how the common core would affect homeschooling. For now, the common core only applies to the 45 states who have adopted it. Perhaps the most immediate threat to homeschool and private school students is the expansion of statewide longitudinal databases. The designers of the new systems fully intend for homeschool and private school stude...

... middle of paper ...

...t too distant future is going to need workers who can think critically, be problem solvers, communicators, and collaborators.

References

Douglas County Republican Party, RNC Resolution against Common Core, at 2 (Colo.

2014).

Guisbond, L., Neill, M., & Schaeffer, B. (2014). NCLB’s Lost Decade for Educational

Progress: What Can We Learn from this Policy Failure? FairTest, 88(1), 2-9.

Ravitch, D. (2014, February 1). Will the Common Core impact homeschools and private

schools? Retrieved April 13, 2014, from Common Core Issues website: http://www

.hslda.org/commoncore/Topic7.aspx.

Spring, J. (2014). The American School A Global Context: from the Puritans to the

Obama Administration (9th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.

Spring, J., & Roberts, U. K. (2013). The American School 1642-1996 (Vol. 12).