Application to Schools and Classrooms

FOCUS What elements of pragmatism appeal to you as a teacher? Which appeal least? Why? Are there elements of pragmatism that you would like to incorporate into your philosophy of education?

6-4d application to schools and classrooms

Whereas idealist and realist teachers make teaching subject matter their primary responsibility, pragmatist teachers are more concerned with teaching students to solve problems using the scientific method as an interdisciplinary approach. Rather than transmitting subjects to students, pragmatist teachers facilitate student research and activities, suggesting resources useful in problem solving, including those found in the library as well as those online.19

Students in a pragmatist classroom share the collaborative experience of using the scientific method to solve a full range of personal, social, and intellectual problems. Teachers expect that students will learn to apply the problem-solving method to situations both in and out of school and thus connect the school to society. Social networking can create a larger, perhaps even a global, community with more opportunities to share ideas, insights, and experiences.

Pragmatist teachers want their classrooms to be collaborative learning communities where students share their interests and problems. Recognizing that every culture has something of value to share with other cultures, they stress multicultural communication between students of different cultures so that together they can create more inclusive democratic communities. Instead of transmitting the status quo, pragmatist teachers are risk takers who see education as an open-ended and uncertain process.

Pragmatists would raise serious questions about the standards movement, especially the Common Core State Standards, which emphasizes successful learning as mastering subjects and relies on standardized testing to assess students’ competencies. The Core rationale burdens students with antecedent goals, and expectations are set by expert academicians and corporate testing agencies rather than those arising from the students’ own experiences, issues, and problems. Further, standardized tests measure only how well students have memorized prescribed content, rather than genuine problem-solving skills. Teachers whose competency is judged by their students’ performance on standardized tests are likely to focus instruction on passing tests rather than solving problems.

How might we apply pragmatism to classroom teaching? Let us say a college teacher-education class is examining the use of standardized tests to determine if standards of academic achievement are being achieved, as in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) or the Common Core Standards. The class members do the following: 1. Establish the issue’s context: Why is using standardized tests to measure achievement a controversial issue in education? Who supports and who opposes using standardized tests to set academic standards? 2. Define the problem’s key terms: What is a standardized test, and how is it used? 3. Conduct interdisciplinary research to locate information about the issue from various sources such as professional educators, educational psychologists, government agencies, parents’ organizations, state and federal legislators, and the Web. 4. Conjecture possible solutions, ranging from acceptance to rejection of the proposition. 5. Resolve the issue by reaching consensus and acting—for example, carry out an agreement to write a position paper and send it to newspapers, journals, and administrators in the department of education at your college or university.

19For the philosophical implications of technology, see Larry A. Hickman, Philosophical Tools for Technological Culture (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001).