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Thought and Practice: Past and Present Assignment Two 1 178 words Compare and contrast Dew’s and Moneymaker’s views on how social control is best achieved in education. Whose views do you prefer and why? Different educational theories comprised by educational philosophers contain many significant elements in order to facilitate their implementation. One Important quality within the foundations of an educational theory would be that of social control. Social control Is a determining factor which inhibits or enables children to participate in retain behaviors and habits in order to guide their education.
Social control also exists in strong correlation to virtuous and moral development, yet another highly impeding factor in successful education. However, many conflicting views are held on how social control employed, in particular Dewey and Moneymaker. Despite holding quite a few similar notions such as the importance of social Interaction and the importance of groups, Dewey and Moneymaker hold highly opposing views on social control; believing that social control should be employed internally or from an external source, respectively.
The majority of Dew’s educational thought is based on the theory that education is found in life experience and that through education, an intrinsic desire to learn should arise within the students . Likewise, Dew’s theory of social control is that it should not be imposed from an outside authoritative source such as a teacher, yet It should arise internally through the thoughts and actions of students within a groups_ Conventional educational theories that existed In Dews time held traditional operations of reward for good behavior and punishment for unacceptable behavior.
Not only would this did these methods rely on the will of another, but as a result would lead children to absorb a predetermined, biased and prejudiced view on world issues. In turn, Dewey created a highly democratic theory of education, void of instruction from an outside authority. Within his theories, Dewey likened social control to a child’s games.
He observed; the 1 DECIDED Educational Thought and Practice: Past and Present Study Guide, Topic Four: Dewey, pop Ibid 3 J Bowen & P Hobnobs, Theories of Education: Studies of Significant Innovation in Western Educational Thought, Brisbane, 1987, p 168 J Guerilla, ‘John Dewey on moral development and education: context, conception and legacy, Discourse, Volvo. 9, NO. 2, 1989, p 87 5 Bowen & Hobnobs, Theories of Education, p 206 Melinda Gifford 220048463 game and the rules were autonomous and one in the same, neither existing without the other.
The game and the rules also hold tradition and precedent and as children observe the game, they wish to emulate tit. With this analogy, Dewey observes that the control of an individual would affect the group as a whole through the notions of cooperation, participation and sharing of common experience. He also observes that within the game, no players feel oppressed by an individual or outside source of authority yet the game unfolds as intended. However, within this analogy Dewey notes the importance of umpires, who guide and overcome disputes and hindrances within the game so it can continued.
Within this analogy, the role of an educator is not to explicitly state what is right or wrong and lead students down one final direct path. Students should however, develop their own perceptions and forms of life through exploration with the teacher as only a facilitator for moral thoughts. In comparison, Moneymaker favored strict, explicit, dictatorial social control to be deeply embedded in his theories of education. The Russian society from which he acquired his dogmatic theories was highly communist in nature, with its aims rooted in the good of the state or in Moneymaker’s case, the collective.
The foundations of Moneymaker’s educational theories strayed from the conventional focus on curriculum content to focus on forms of friendships and discipline in order to produce the utopian citizen sought by communist Russian. Moneymaker’s social theories were formed when he began working in colonies with delinquent children. He observed that all pre-existing educational theories held no procedure or system which theorized how to deal with the social behavior of, as Moneymaker calls them, ‘Hooligans’10.
The context of the society Moneymaker’s theories were developed in was highly disciplined political and morally focused culture. Defiance of such societal policies and morals by individuals was insolent, against the aims of the collective and such behavior was Judged as highly immoral 1 . Moneymaker likened the abandoned children to young communists; they were free from religious bias, felt a sense of longing in working classes and were easily assimilated into working class ideals 2. In turn, Moneymaker sought to produce citizens out of students through a high discipline and uniformed manner.
He introduced militant style gymnastics into the colonies, as well as military training, uniforms, a military style schedule and bugles and drum rolls to 6 Ibid 9 Ibid, p 217 10 A Crane, ‘A. S Moneymaker and Russian educational thought’, in The Australian Journal of education, Volvo. 7, No. 1, 1963, p 109 11 Bowen & Hobnobs, Theories of Education, p 238 12 Crane, ‘Moneymaker and Russian educational thought’, p 116 7 signal different segments of the dally 3. Educators took the role of explicit authority in order to instill such aforementioned morals and values within their students.
The authoritarian role was assumed by educators in Moneymaker’s educational theory as he believed that programs were vital to students and all human life. He placed a large emphasis on tomorrow’s Joy despite the present misfortune and the fact that clarity provides stimulus, purpose and direction for any man’s life 5. He believed that previous, less authoritarian, weaker socially controlled educational theories left room or ambiguity and in turn, lacked stimulus and purpose in education and in life.
Although both Dewey and Moneymaker were both highly successful philosophers, within my teaching I would prefer to adapt methods more akin to those imposed by Dewey. However, I agree strongly with many facets of Moneymaker’s system of teaching, but it would depend highly on the context of the class and students in which I was teaching onto which educational theory I would adopt. Student based methods of teaching are highly favored in our contemporary society due to their adaptability to he individual needs of different students.
Dew’s theories on social control compliment student centered teaching as they allow students freedom to not only develop values and morals through their own experiences and thinking, but allow students freedom for individuality and difference. For example, if I were to adopt the role of Moneymaker’s preference and become dictatorial within a classroom, students may not form their own views on societal concepts but instead become indoctrinated by my own. However, allowing some students excessive social freedom would be highly detrimental to their own education.
Moneymaker’s theories would be beneficial when students were unable to form their own socially acceptable behaviors. Reward and punishment systems and strong guidance theorized by Moneymaker in this instance would facilitate learning much more effectively than the theories of Dewey. Despite these vastly different frameworks of social control adopted by Dewey and Moneymaker, their theories both provide insight toward facilitating social control 13 A Moneymaker, The Road to Life: Part One, Moscow, 1955, p 347 Crane, ‘Moneymaker and Russian educational thought’, p 112 15 14 Bibliography
Bowen, J& Hobnobs, P. Theories of Education: Studies of Significant Innovation in Western Educational Thought, John Wiley, Brisbane, 1987 Crane, A. ‘A. S Moneymaker and Russian educational thought’, in The Australian Journal of education, Volvo. 7, No. 1, 1963 Guerilla, J. ‘John Dewey on moral development and education: context, conception and legacy, in Discourse, Volvo. 9, No. 2, 1989 Moneymaker, A. The Road To Life: Part One, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1955 University of New England, DECIDED Educational Thought and Practice: Past and Present Study Guide, Airmailed, 2010