John Dewey Lives

Often at TDT and PDD meetings I hear the voice of philosopher/educator John Dewey ringing in my ears. Dewey, a champion of learning by doing and a theorist of group problem-solving, would have been pleased to overhear PDD members at their first meeting in Fall, 2001.

The plan for Fall, 2001 -- or so I thought -- was for PDD to begin with several weeks of Hearings on Student Activism. But when I voiced this assumption to the group, several new members demurred. A split developed among those who wanted hearings, others who wanted to stage public discussions, and those who wanted PDD discussions to be confined to the membership.

I stayed out of this meeting as much as a control freak can. What emerged was a creative compromise. The group as a whole would hold public discussions one week, and discussions amongst themselves the following week, during which they would reflect on the substance and process of the preceding meeting. Everyone would participate in the process of scheduling and topic selection, but then responsibility for staging individual events would be divided among 3 person committees. Their tasks included panel and moderator selection, briefing of panelists, publicity, and room arrangements.

The events proved highly successful, but staging them was fraught with problems. Fortunately, the problems themselves were of a sort conducive to Dewey-style learning-by-doing and group problem-solving. Running across several of the events were issues of bias. Who among the PDDers should moderate the first student-run session, on “Roots of Islamic Discontent With U.S. Foreign Policy”? The group’s decision was to split the moderating task between Brendan, an ardent supporter of U.S. foreign policy, and Omer, a Pakistani critic of that policy. But Brendan felt that Omer had gotten carried away, and he was not alone. Brendan also voiced concern about possible bias in an upcoming panel discussion of “Reparations for Slavery.” He thought having a non-black moderator would ameliorate the problem, but got no support from the group. I thought that panel selection for the “Reparations” discussion was lopsided, and I said as much afterwards to the all-black planning committee, but I nevertheless supported their right to stage the event as they did. Likewise, I thought that inclusion of a left-oriented faculty historian on the topic of globalization would tip a delicate balance created by prior invitations to an activist critic of globalization and a faculty economist who supported it. This time I voiced my objection in advance of the panel discussion, and was politely rebuffed by its student moderator. Fortunately so, for the historian added dimensions to the panel discussions that would have been sorely missed. I later congratulated the event planners for insisting on the decisions they had made after hearing my advice. It had been just that -- advice.