Social reconstruction learning: Using philosophy for children John Dewey to overcome problematic dualisms in education and philosophy.

摘要

Many of the problems in dominant Western education and philosophy can be connected to various dualisms, in particular reason/emotion, reason/imagination, reason/experience,mind/body, subject/object, individual/community, abstract/concrete, theory/practice andmale/female dualisms. These pairs are considered opposites, with the attributes on the leftsupposedly superior to their dualistic partners on the right. While those attributes on the left,such as mind and reason, are traditionally associated with knowledge, autonomy, citizenshipand learning, the attributes on the right, such as emotion and experience, are traditionallythought to be opposed to knowledge, autonomy, citizenship and learning. Drawing on thephilosophies of John Dewey and various feminist philosophers, I will argue that the attributesthat make up each of these dualistic pairs are not opposed but are actually interdependent andinterconnected. For example, I will argue that all thinking and learning involves reason,experience, emotion and imagination interacting with one and other. Neither of these attributesor functions is complete or fully functional without the others. Since mainstream Westernpedagogies incorporate such dualisms they are unable to fully facilitate the thinking skills,attributes, dispositions and understandings necessary for autonomy, democratic citizenship andleading a meaningful life. It will be shown that Philosophy for Children (P4C) has the potentialto overcome many of the problems with mainstream education, including many gender equity problems, because it is based on Dewey’s philosophical ideals, which reconstruct many of these dualisms. An analysis of the ideals of truth, meaning, community, self, autonomy, democracy, thinking, emotion and imagination assumed by P4C will show how it reconstructs various dualisms and overcomes many problems with traditional schooling. However, it will also be shown that P4C fails to reconstruct the undesirable theory/practice dualism because it doesn’t require students to test and apply their ideas in the real world. This is even though many P4C theorists, such as Matthew Lipman, accept Dewey’s claim that all thinking and learning involve such practicality. Thus, I will reconstruct the P4C pedagogy by integrating it with a Deweyian type of service learning that I call social reconstruction learning. Social reconstruction learning involves students engaging in P4C style communities of inquiry with members of their community in order to reconstruct real social problems. Such a Practical P4C pedagogy canbetter facilitate reflective thinking, autonomy, active citizenship and meaningfulness.