Deweyan inquiry: From education theory to practice

Johnston, J.S. (2009). Deweyan inquiry: From education theory to practice. Albany: Suny Press. 97 pages, ISBN: 978-0-7914-9355-7 Introduction Decades have passed since the paradigm shift in education theory regarding student-centredness altered learning and education; the aim was to have no more teacher-centered classrooms, no artificial textbook exercises, and no student passivity. The intended result of this shift was activity-based classrooms, in which students work together in groups on relevant tasks, experiment, and exchange thoughts and ideas in order to tackle problems and obstacles to gain an extensive understanding of the matter. In this model, the teacher accompanies students as a facilitator. Today, however, peeping into classrooms, one has to admit that--for whatever reasons--the textbooks have somehow found a way to prevail. One can still hear the teacher speak for most of the time, and relevant tasks and projects are initiated scarcely. James Scott Johnston tries to contribute to the understanding of this divide between education theory and practice by having a closer look into Dewey's comprehensive work. He puts his focus of attention onto the so-called and takes a closer look at the most important terms of Dewey's theory of education and pragmatism. He clearly states, however, that his work is not intended to substitute Dewey's work, but that his overall aim is to point out how can be of use in several fields of education, such as science education, social science education, art and art education, and embodiment and physical education. Johnston starts off with a general introduction into the idea of inquiry, the specific context in which inquiry can take place and what the methods and techniques of inquiry look like. The reader gets to know the ideas behind various terms--such as situation, self-correction, and universal conception--that make up the character of inquiry. He then successively works himself through the educational areas that have been named above, first of all science education, a context in which inquiry is the most likely to occur or to be practiced. The familiarity of these subjects with the nature of inquiry derives from the tradition of experimentation and testing of physical and chemical laws. But Johnston clearly points out that one would be mistaken to reduce inquiry solely to the context of these experimentations. Sciences such as biology, geography, and mathematics provide a far wider range of contexts to which inquiry can be applied. A second area he discusses is social science education. There, he points out that it is the existential situations of people in all their manifestations, which are investigated (p. 48). He eventually looks at art and art education as well as embodiment and physical education and argues them to be as highly important for inquiry as any other subject. As a conclusion, James Scott Johnston summarizes the most important elements of inquiry within the fields of education that he has discussed. It becomes obvious that one of teachers' hardest tasks is to establish an unsettled situation in which a problem is created--a problem that is genuine for the students--but at the same time one of the essential elements for a successful inquiry classroom. Discussion Johnston takes the overall aim of this book--to show how inquiry works in various fields of education--very seriously. …

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