Full Description
This book makes a strong case for the abiding relevance of Dewey's notion of learning through experience, with a community of others and what this implies for democratic education in the 21st century. Its first section addresses the experience of today's generation of so-called 'digital natives' in terms of how we should now understand 'knowledge' and how their online experience creates opportunities and challenges for the curriculum, such as schools linking internationally to study classical texts; an exposition of why makerspaces, hackerspaces and Fab Labs might support Dewey's democratic communities in our time, with on-line affordances of 'a commons', a space to use imagination and invent and share with others.
The book's second section is original in its focus on the central Deweyan idea of 'embodiment' with chapters on Dewey and the Alexander technique and on experiences of Afro-American students, in public schools, especially those situated in multi-racial, multi-ethnic countries like the U.S. with deep, racial divides and tensions. The section ends with a chapter on the somaesthetic, educational value of learning outside of buildings.
A third section on experience related to democracy and education, has chapters on Dewey and the democratic curriculum, experience as a preparation for democracy, communication and the critique of individualism. Dewey's notion of interest is analyzed and questioned as to whether it is a sympathetic notion for educational development.
With contributions from Spain, Cameroon, the US and the UK the book ranges across varied curricular and policy contexts to explore what reading Dewey can contribute to contemporary education studies.
Contents
Editors' Introduction: The Book, The Conference and Fighting Back; Ruth Heilbronn, Christine Doddington and Rupert Higham
Part 1 - Dewey, Experience and Technology.
1. Preserving Rich Experience in The Digital Age; Bob Coulter
2. The Emergence of Makerspaces, Hackerspaces and Fab Labs: Dewey's Democratic Communities of The 21st Century?; Sally Eaves and Stephen Harwood
3. Constructing Creative Democracy at School by Reading the Classics: A Dialogue Between Martha Nussbaum and John Dewey; Gonzalo Jover, Rosario González Martín, Juan Luis Fuentes
Part 2 - Dewey, Experience and Bodies.
4. Dewey and The Alexander Technique: Lessons in Mind-Body Learning; Charlotte Woods, Malcolm Williamson and Jenny Fox Eades
5. Black Bodies in Schools: Dewey's Democratic Provision for Participation Confronts the Challenges of Fundamental Plunder; Sue Ellen Henry and Kathleen Knight Abowitz
6. Education in The Open: The Somaesthetic Value of Being Outside; Christine Doddington
Part 3 - Dewey, Experience, Democracy and Education.
7. Dewey and The Democratic Curriculum; Neil Hopkins
8. Dewey Anticipates Habermas's Paradigm of Communication: The Critique of Individualism and The Basis for Moral Authority in Democracy and Education; Brian Dotts
9. The Role of the Educators' Disposition and Mental Processes in A Student's Experience of Democracy; Victoria Door and Clare Wilkinson
10. Dewey's Notion of Interest: Antithetic to or Sympathetic with Educational Development?; Valentine Ngalim
Epilogue - Gert Biesta
