This review has been accessed  times since Nov. 3, 2000
Fishman, Stephen and McCarthy, Lucille.
(1998). John Dewey and the Challenge
of Classroom Practice. N.Y., N.Y.: Teachers College
Press
264 pp.
$20.95 (Paper) ISBN 0-8077-3726-7
$46.00 (Cloth) ISBN 0-8077-3727-5
Reviewed by Joyce Cassidy
University of Wyoming
November 3, 2000
In their book, JohnDewey and the Challenge of
Classroom Practice, philosophy professor, Stephen M.
Fishman of the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and
Lucille McCarthy of the University of Maryland, Baltimore
County, explain the ideas of John Dewey and their relevance
to today's teaching. The current educational stampede is
to align all educational practices so that students' test
scores funnel neatly into percentile scores which then
loudly shout the student's perceived level of proficiency.
It was encouraging to read Fishman's concern as a teacher
for not only student outcomes but more importantly, for the
means of getting there. After giving a thorough and
readable account of the theories of John Dewey, Fishman
tells of his pedagogical struggles as a teacher of college
philosophy students. McCarthy's role is that of
qualitative researcher, watching and writing about Fishman
and his students.
The first chapter of John Dewey and the Challenge of
Classroom Practice begins with a quote from
Democracy and Education by John Dewey, "Such things,
[knowledge, beliefs, ideas] cannot be passed physically
from one to another like bricks; they cannot be shared as
persons would share a pie by dividing it into physical
pieces" (as cited in Fishman and McCarthy, 1998). Fishman
says this epigraph could be used to explain the importance
that Dewey placed on student interest and activity for
learning (1998). Ideas cannot be passed out like bricks
because, like bricks, they cannot be easily separated from
one another, but are an integral part of an entire
structure. Like ideas, bricks must have a purpose before
they are useful. Fishman (1998) states, "We must have the
desire to live in a building, construct a new one, or
demolish an old one" (p. 20). Ideas are the bricks or
building blocks of the learner. Only when there is
purpose, will learners use ideas to begin to construct new
meanings and begin to modify and adhere these ideas to
those already more firmly in place.
Fishman (1998) goes on to describe two teaching dichotomies
that he believes Dewey would find to be nightmarish. One is the
vision of a progressive teacher who loves her students by
allowing them do as they please (Fishman & McCarthy, 1998). The
other is a vision of students arranged in rows, answering rote
learning questions. Dewey recognized the importance of both
student and curriculum, but thought the focus of instruction
should be placed on the learning process (McCarthy & Fishman,
1998). The student should need the curriculum in the learning
situation and therefore be "prompted to intelligently explore,
use, and remember it." (Fishman & McCarthy, 1998, p. 24).
Having been required to read smatterings of Dewey throughout
my educational course work, I always read what I was asked to
read and felt a stirring of excitement. There's always a new
educational theory, a new and better practice in education, but
Dewey was a constant. The opposition that was voiced always
seemed to be that Dewey focused too much on the student and not
enough on the curriculum. So in amongst the excitement that I
felt for the type of real-life teaching that I saw as Dewey's,
there was concern, that perhaps, the students would gain nothing
more than warm fuzzy feelings. Fishman (1998) sums up his
interpretation of Dewey and students and curriculum and their
relationship to one another:
In sum, Dewey takes students seriously enough to worry,
not about year-end
exams, but about the sorts of character they are
developing. He also takes
curriculum seriously enough to want students to be able to
intelligently access, evaluate, and make it their own. In
other words, if we really care about
curriculum, we should help students use it, test it, and
preserve what is
best in it for a developing world. And if we really care
about students,
we need to study curriculum to understand how it can best
promote the
methods and traits of character students require for
informed, fulfilling
lives (p. 27).
As I continued to read John Dewey and the
Challenge of Classroom Practice, I again felt that stirring
of excitement about Dewey. Dewey cared about the student and
the curriculum and the process. I read eagerly on.
Part One explains John Dewey's complicated
educational philosophy of nested dualisms. If Dewey's
educational nightmares are to be avoided, all of Dewey's
dualisms need to be considered by the teacher (Fishman, 1998).
Fishman (1998) discusses the dualism of continuity and
interaction. Every learning experience is continuous, taking
from the past and laying tracks for the future. Each learning
experience also has an interaction component, when the learner
is interacting with his environment. The quality of the
experience will depend on its continuities and interactions.
This seems to make sense, each student takes his past and uses
it to construct new knowledge and then takes his new knowledge
and is on his way to an even greater understanding. To get to
any new understanding, interaction of some sort is necessary.
Continuity and interaction are then inexorably intertwined or
"nested."
The dualism of construction and criticism refers to
the construction or production of anything, whether it be a
report, a building, or an idea (Fishman, 1998). The criticism
necessarily follows the construction. The criticism is the
judging of what is done so that it has meaning and purpose.
Without criticism, the construction is meaningless for the
learner. Dewey makes it clear that criticism is not to be the
red marks of a teacher on the work of a student. Criticism has
to be the work of the learner as he views what it is he has
constructed, whether it be trying to fit new ideas in with those
that he assimilated already or whether he looks at a project or
other physical creation and decides whether it fits the purpose
that he has meant it to serve. Construction serves no
worthwhile purpose without the thoughtful, individual criticism
of the learner.
The last of the Dewey dualisms, interest and effort,
has three principal components (Fishman, 1998). The "for-whats"
are the goals, the problems students want to solve,
things they have a need to say, or causes they want to promote.
Without the "for-whats," interest will be lacking, and therefore
effort. But even a strong "for-what" is not enough. A student
must also have a "to-what" or object of focus which is that
which must be attended to in the environment, if the "for-what"
is to be achieved. The last principal component is a "with-which"
or bridge. A student must travel from that which is familiar
to that which is not. The right amount of unfamiliar must be
present, or the student cannot succeed. Too much unfamiliar and
the student is overwhelmed and gives up. Too little, and he is
unchallenged and unmotivated to continue.
Once again, as with the other Dewey dualisms, this
dualism just makes sense. The ideal lesson challenges just
enough, but not too much. This was the first I'd read of
Dewey's dualisms. My smatterings of Dewey had not included
them. But all the parts seemed familiar, and although I'd never
have been able to list them as such, I immediately recognized
them as the integral parts of good learning, and it is the
constant challenge of a good teacher to provide as many as
possible for the students. I thank Fishman for making Dewey's
complex ideas more understandable and relevant.
Part Two is entitled "Deweyan Classroom Experiences."
Fishman takes us on an autobiographical journey of his quest as
an undergraduate philosophy major at Columbia. He tells of his
yearnings to understand philosophy and of his desire to know
when he was writing philosophically. Fishman's quest to gain
understanding of the subject matter and his interactions with
his professors lead him to understand that active learning,
rather than passive, is necessary. It is Deweyan philosophy
which helps Fishman (1998) understand his struggles as an
undergraduate student. But Fishman (1998) also says, that it
took not only Dewey, to reach an understanding, but 30 years of
teaching and reflecting on the problems which he faced as a
teacher. As a teacher, he was able to review the problems he
had had as a student, and gain some understanding of his
professors' reasons for answering his questionings in the ways
they chose. Fishman impresses me with the way he's able to
think back to his college days and reflect without rancor on
what seemed to be his professors' less than half-hearted
attempts to assist him in his heartfelt searchings.
As teachers, we're expected to just know, and it's hard
to admit the questionings and the doubts. Yet, it seems to me,
the more I learn and read, the more uncomfortable I become and
the more I question and the more I doubt. Yet, it is those that
continually doubt and question that I most admire. Fishman
impressively reveals all of his questioning and doubts and
relates them to Deweyan theory.
Fishman (1998) attends a Writing Across the Curriculum
retreat in 1983. He is so changed by the experience that he
throws away the syllabus he has developed for the philosophy
class he is teaching. He now thinks that what he has planned to
teach is not continuous with his students' lives and will soon
be forgotten anyway. Fishman (1998) begins to work to engage
his students in learning about philosophy through writing about
their own lives, "The centerpiece of my new strategy was the
freewrite" (p. 90). Fishman (1998) tells his students that he
considers the semester to be successful if everyone falls in
love with just one sentence, preferably their own.
In 1989, Fishman (1998) attends a College
Composition and Communication Conference, and it is Lucille
McCarthy, a panelist at the conference, that questions Fishman
about what he is teaching. Was it philosophy? And what was
philosophy anyway? And didn't philosophy need to differ from
the teaching of literature (Fishman & McCarthy, 1998)? This
begins Fishman on another pedagogical quest. Fishman returns
his class to more philosophical texts and continues the
freewrites but becomes more explicit about their contents.
Fishman and McCarthy begin a long running collaborative research
project using Fishman and his students as subjects.
McCarthy (1998) triangulates using interviews, field
notes, student and teacher documents, and videotapes. Through
her efforts, Fishman's class is visited by the reader and
Fishman's constant searchings to make his classes more relevant
and memorable and Dewey-like are made apparent. Fishman (1998)
decides that he, "needed to pay more attention to Dewey's charge
to teach indirectly, to integrate classroom activities and
resources less obvious than student and curriculum: namely,
questioning and answering, teaching and learning, homework and
classwork" (p. 133).
The final four chapters of the book concentrate on five
students and relate the findings of McCarthy's qualitative
study. We see the results of Fishman's remodeled pedagogy which
includes a letter exchange within the classroom in which Fishman
(1998) hopes to, "get students to come up with their own foci of
interest from the assigned text, what Dewey would call their own
‘to-whats'" (p. 134). "For-what" also becomes more than just
a student wanting a good grade, there is now the desire to
understand the material so that it can be related to a fellow
student and the readings hopefully become relevant to issues in
the students' own lives.
In their conclusion, Fishman and McCarthy (1998) answer the
question of, "Why Dewey, now?"
First, Dewey's ideas are relevant to contemporary criticisms
leveled at public education. Second, his ideas are feasible as
well as effective in promoting teacher development, and, third,
they are feasible and effective in promoting student learning
(219).
Although this book was written about a college class, I
found it relevant as an elementary teacher. To have the
opportunity to share in the searchings of a great and caring
teacher as he scrutinizes and modifies his teaching practices,
was inspiring. I don't think Dewey would approve of the test
score mentality which seems to be taking over the field of
education, but I think he would approve of Fishman's and
McCarthy's book.
About the Authors
Stephen M. Fishman is at University of North Carolina,
Charlotte.
Lucille McCarthy is at the University of
Maryland, Baltimore County.
About the Reviewer
Joyce Cassidy is an elementary classroom teacher and an
education
doctoral student at the University of Wyoming.
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