What's the effect?

Education is not preparation for life.  Education is life itself.
- John Dewey

            

I normally wouldn't put stock in a saying like this one because the people who say such things are generally not among those who are educated.  That to me means they are speaking about something they haven't experienced, so they don't know if their words are true or not.  But the quotation above is from one of the pioneers of modern education, a premier educational reformer.  He would know the truth of his words.

One of the stated missions for many school districts across the U.S. is to prepare students for life.  If Dewey is right, the school should have no such mission.  I had a great discussion with two people last night, one from Honduras, the other from Mexico, over this idea.  Both of them didn't have much formal education and thought that formal training would have changed things for them.  I could see their point of view since I have espoused the idea of preparation for life before.

But really, Dewey is right.  Society is set up to provide jobs that require "training" in order to enhance performance.  But part of "life itself" that Dewey speaks of is experiencing life as it happens, solving problems as they happen, overcoming difficulties as they happen.  The experience itself is what allows success or failure.  There's no grade given for one's performance.  Your experience worked for you or it didn't.

It is true that researching how to do something is part of any experience, but life happening to a person is not artificial like most people's education.  Life happening to a person isn't artificial.  It has tangible, real, long or short term effects. 

And how should one attempt to duplicate the experience of life happening.  In Dewey's day, one attempt was the Motessori approach to education.  Discovery learning it has been called.  Many approaches have come and gone since that time.  But, the mission of preparation for life has prevailed throughout all the attempts.

I hope that today's educators would see the truth of Dewey's statement.  We need education to give life experiences that have effects for those engage in it.  Education should not be simply periods of learning subject facts.  It should include a broader scope of experience that has tangible, real, long and short term results.

Imagine an 18-year-old who knows that life has effects and tries to take on life by competently, deliberately solving problems and overcoming difficulties.  It shouldn't be imagination!