Then Again, Won’t You Stay Away, John Dewey?

Martin Bickman’s Op-Ed piece, “Won’t You Come Home, John Dewey?” July 20, places altogether too much hope on the ability of John Dewey or -- by extension -- anyone else to resolve the polarization that characterizes education in the U.S. today.

The America that Dewey inhabited at the turn of the last century is fundamentally different from today’s.

Public schools in the United States then never were charged with educating a student population as diverse culturally, racially and ethnically as they are now.

Nor were they faced with statutory demands for accountability as rigorous as those in effect under the No Child Left Behind Act.

What Dewey dealt with successfully, as a result, pales by comparison.

It’s always comforting to believe in fairy tales, but the one about resurrecting John Dewey as savior of public education today strains credibility.

Walt Gardner

Los Angeles

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If parents today are at a loss as to why their children are not learning life skills to prepare them for their future, you can thank John Dewey. Dewey felt that education was only to prepare a child to function as a part of society. The Dewey educational system does not accept or care to develop a child’s individual talents.

What is wrong with the Dewey system of education is that it betrays the individual and benefits the elite. It fosters generations of frustrated individuals betrayed by their society and reduced to mere time-clock punchers, when they know in their hearts they are so much more.

Yet the greatest fault of the Dewey system is that it runs counter to the foundation of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, which make clear that it is the government that is subservient to the individual, not the reverse.

If sight of Dewey has been lost, may he stay lost for the sake of the children and our future as a Democracy.

Rob Goff

South Pasadena