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Cultivating Knowledge
With the Thanksgiving Holiday in mind, I have found the words spoken by John Dewey in 1916 still hold true today. His comparison between educators and farmers is a wonderful analogy in almost every possible way. As educators, our responsibility is to cultivate knowledge and help our students grow, year after year, despite many ever-changing challenges. His wise words and advice follow.
“There is nothing peculiar about educational aims. They are just like aims in any directed occupation. The educator, like the farmer, has certain things to do, certain resources with which to do, and certain obstacles with which to contend. The conditions with which the farmer deals, whether as obstacles or resources, have their own structure and operation independently of any purpose of his. Seeds sprout, rain falls, the sun shines, insects devour, blight comes, the seasons change. His aim is simply to utilize these various conditions; to make his activities and their energies work together, instead of against one another. It would be absurd if the farmer set up a purpose of farming, without any reference to these conditions of soil, climate, characteristic of plant growth, etc. His purpose is simply a foresight of the consequences of his energies connected with those of the things about him, a foresight used to direct his movements from day to day. Foresight of possible consequences leads to more careful and extensive observation of the nature and performances of the things he had to do with, and to laying out a plan — that is, of a certain order in the acts to be performed.”
Education and Democracy
John Dewey, 1916
As we continue to focus on gratitude as our SEL word of the month and we enter the Thanksgiving Week Holiday break, I hope you enjoy time with family and friends. Thank you for all you do to support our students and their families!
Together in Education,
Ben Necaise
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