John Dewey attempts to indicate that in an ideal situation schools can be connected with life for the experiences a child has while in school to be carried over and become useful to that person outside of school. In return, the experiences they have at home or in their community can provide some value that they may bring back to the school and apply it to their learning or to even further clarified. This creates an organic process of student engagement with the whole versus isolated parts of their studies.
To enforce his point Dewey describes school from the standpoint of the child, which unfortunately is very relatable. The child will see school as a waste of time or pointless if they can’t use the skills they are taught they must learn in their daily lives or in a way that has meaning for them. The same goes for knowledge and skills they acquire outside of school but can’t freely use within it. The youth needs to be more acquainted with practical skills that make sense for them to have and they should be able to know how what they are learning connects with other parts of their educations instead of teaching subjects separately.
This article points out the obvious but it’s the neglected obvious, and that is the fact that we live in a world where everything is bound together and interconnected. The studies students experiences should feel the same, they should be naturally unified. He continues to describe how that can be done, and I must say I loved the ideas, but they are on the idealistic side. Yes, there should be a connection between school and the lives we live. It can be about preparing young people of particular businesses or acquainting them with banking systems and know how’s, or it can be the teacher fostering a student’s spirit of inquiry so that they can learn what has meaning. They can engage in their studies as a whole and value it as whole life skills instead of learning trivial facts.
To achieve the goals, he mentions at the end that teachers should no longer worry about correlating studies and resorting to all sorts of ways to merge content, school studies have to be connected with each other and with life outside the school walls. A goal that is achievable by creating a place that students can bring their experiences, problems, and questions to discuss them. Most importantly accumulate wisdom from the perspectives of others. Another way to create an ecosystem within the schools is to curate a collection of intellectual resources of all kinds that give meaning to what they learn. In the end, we want students to “come to school with a whole mind and a whole body, and leave school with a fuller mind and an even healthier body.
