Dear Dewey

I laughed when you mentioned Dewey, Tom. One of the lectures in September and another one today was about Dewey, but I must admit I initially wrote his philosophy off as being not related to my personal philosophies because I took away the incorrect notion that Dewey didn't support creativity and relating school to life. I think I interpreted the September lecture this way simply because Dewey's philosophy was presented in a very disconnected-from-life experience. I listened more closely to the details of the lecture on Dewey today, and sure enough - he is all about learning from inquiry into genuine life problems! It's amazing how much the style of teaching impacts the message that gets remembered, eh! Consciously or not, I related Dewey's philosophy to the feeling that the lecture created. When I listened to the September lecture, I was feeling: "This sounds like a lot of fancy words about Dewey's life and wife and history; that doesn't relate to me, and I can't do any creativity thinking here", and so I connected Dewey's philosophy to the feeling I experienced of irrelevance. I was totally off the mark about Dewey! Thanks for prompting me to give Dewey a second chance. I also fortunately have a friend in philosophy who defended Dewey as well. It's reassuring to know that Dewey understands everything I've been feeling and experiencing.

This was also a good reminder of the method being the message. Emotions in class are extremely powerful teaching tools. For example, when we cancel variables in problem solving, I make an ka-boom explosion sound effect. I've always done this for both my own learning and my teaching (with different volumes of ka-boom's depending on the situation - I even ka-boom quietly in my head during exams). Why? Because it's exciting! I'm not just cancelling a random greek letter with another greek letter, I'm picturing a giant hot air balloon which was accidentally filled with hydrogen gas instead of air, exploding into an awesome fireball when the flame is ignited (all people standing a safe distance back, and wearing safety goggles of course)! That mass on the bottom of the fraction hit the mass on top, and now they are both cancelled in a giant exciting explosion!! And cancelling variables should be exciting, because when we cancel out variables, we're getting closer to narrowing in on our solution! Goodness, I'm getting excited just writing about it!

Excitement for excitement's sake isn't the point, however. I believe this excitement actually makes me a better problem solver: if cancelling variables reminded me of visiting the dentist, I'd do it when necessary, but I certainly wouldn't go out of my way and rearrange my equation to make cancelling variables possible. But since cancelling variables is so exciting and fun, my eyes are jumping around even the biggest scariest equation on the look out for ways to simplify it, and of course, once I've exploded a few variables, the answer usually just falls right out of the giant cloud of fire. I want to help my students develop their own images and positive emotions when they learn any skill in Physics, so my method of teaching needs to be one that induces positive emotions and images.

Now that I'm on the topic, I might as well mention another point this experience learning about Dewey brings up in my mind. I was reminded today how extremely important it is for teachers to not just believe their message, but to believe in their message enough to actually do it. It sounds ridiculous that a teacher would try to teach us that the only way to learn is through inquiry into life-related problems using a teaching method that was not at all inquiry-friendly with few connections to real life. But it happens - even with very good teachers. In today's job market, I can't imagine Queen's hiring anyone less than highly experienced, well-established, knowledgable, and talented teachers. I feel quite nervous to judge these teachers because they are so much more experienced, knowledgeable and skilled than I currently am. But as can be observed at McArthur, even some of those great teachers can easily disconnect their philosophies of education from their actual teaching styles. Therefore, even if it seems obvious, and almost ridiculous to write down, I'm going to write it - mostly as a way of keeping myself accountable. I'm going to practice what I preach. If I truly believe that creativity is essential for learning and using Physics (and I do believe this), than my students are going to learn in creative ways. My philosophy of education is not just going to be something that I have written down in my portfolio somewhere: I'm going to believe in it enough to actually use it.
Aside: It's interesting how much learning in one area of life influences another - I feel like I'm preaching out of James 2 right now (the gist of that chapter is: "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds...You believe that there is one God. Good! Even demons believe that - and shudder"). Disconnecting faith philosophies from real-life actions, such as loving people, has disastrous results (which do happen all too often!) for Christians. So maybe that's why I feel strongly about making sure my philosophy of teaching lines up with my practice.

So all that to say, thanks for the encouragement to look a little closer at Dewey! He does have a helpful philosophy after all. I just need to dust it off the powerpoint slides, and put it to good use in my classroom.