“Crow Island” (Dewey Classroom, Chicago 1940)
The older type of instruction tended to treat the teacher as a dictatorial ruler. The newer type sometimes treats the teacher as a negligible fact, almost as an evil, though a necessary one. In reality the teacher is the intellectual leader of a social group. He is a leader, not in virtue of official position, but because of a wider and deeper knowledge and matured experience. The supposition that the principle of freedom confers liberty upon the pupils, but that the teacher is outside of its range and must abdicate all leadership is merely silly.
John Dewey (Later Works 8:337)
As a teacher, it can be daunting to understand one’s leadership role, especially when managing expectations for students as ordinary learning routines have been capsized by a pandemic. Dewey warns such circumstances are the very time to avoid counterproductive, or merely either-or thinking. For instance, when faced with chaotic circumstances, a teacher may gravitate towards taking more control, as a dictator might, or release that control as classroom facilitator, letting students finish their own learning path without a navigator.
To Dewey, this either-or thinking for teachers is insufficient, and irresponsible; instead, he encourages educators to examine the moment of impasse as an opportunity to reflect and reshape one’s practice. The freedom Dewey offers teachers to lead, which authors Simpson, Jackson and Aycock explore in “The Teacher As Leader”, is to seek intellectual clarity through social inquiry with others. In particular, their essay explores and questions the teacher’s active role in suggesting or shaping “understandings, qualities of mind, and particular activities” to spur student inquiry.
Our efforts to seek social inquiry together make Fieldwork a messy and spontaneous space to learn. I am often surprised by the messiness of teaching community-based learning, but I always gravitate back to leading through intellectual inquiry, to apply shared understandings so we might make new knowledge.
If you are still searching for an idea to prompt your final fieldjournal reflection for Blog 7, I’m offering you the option of reading this essay on Dewey as a springboard for integrating your own thinking about how teachers lead, either the teacher you’ve been working with in the Rockbridge County Schools, or a teacher you’ve witnessed in your own educational history. I know that leadership is a relevant quality at VMI, but one I find needs further articulation to be understood in a variety of social contexts. As you read and interpret Dewey’s theories about leading in the classroom, you might consider one of these guiding questions:
According to Dewey’s modes of counterproductive thinking in the attached essay (Table 13:1, 178), in what ways have you experienced these modes in a learning setting? How have you seen your teachers lead themselves or others into or out of these practices?
What common understandings, qualities or activities have you seen a teacher model or create in a classroom to define a shared intellectual purpose? (see Summative exercise on 187)
Are there any particular anecdotes or explanations Dewey offers that help you imagine the kinds of “productive thinking” (see 179) teachers should emulate in concert with their students and public affiliations?
ESSAY DOWNLOAD ATTACHED:
Dewey_TeacherAs Leader_SJ&A2005