Steven C. Paul

            Encapsulating the full complexity of George Herbert Mead’s ideas and how they pertain to the field of education within only a handful of pages is an impossible task.  To attempt this would compromise too many nuances inherent to Mead’s theories and significantly undermine the scope of his work.  Rather than attempt a full summarization of Mead’s life story and his prevailing philosophies, this portrait will primarily focus on how his contributions to the field of social psychology translated to overall constructivist theories and particularly to the work of his friend and colleague, John Dewey.  In doing so, this portrait will not only touch on the central themes behind Mead’s prevailing philosophies and work, but attempt to tie them to the same principles established by Dewey in Experience & Education as well as modern constructivist theories.

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         George Herbert Mead has been widely regarded as one of the founders of modern Pragmatism, a philosophical movement that rose to prominence in the United States during the latter nineteenth-century.  At the risk of oversimplifying, Pragmatism emphasizes practicality and functionality, focusing on ideas that work in a real world application rather than abstract concepts with little factual basis.  Mead served as an unofficial spokesman for the movement while working at the University of Chicago, along with fellow pragmatists James Hayden Tufts and John Dewey.  Mead’s individual contributions could best be described as the foundational principles for modern social psychology.  Paramount among these is the concept of “symbolic interactionism” which essentially attaches “significant symbols” to an individual’s socialization experience.

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            It is through the act of socialization that Mead’s theories can best be applied to an educational application.  His work essentially supports the notion of education as a primarily social experience.  Social versus individual experience was a recurrent theme of Mead’s as exemplified in 1934’s Mind, Self & Society, a posthumous compilation of his notes and papers:

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           …the behavior of the individual can be understood only in terms of the

         behavior of the whole social group of which he is a member, since his

         individual acts are involved in larger, social acts which go beyond

         himself and which implicate the other members of the group. (p. 10-11).

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“Symbolic interactionism”, to put it simply, serves as the catalyst through which this process is initiated, processed and shared.  Through the identification and confirmation of “symbolic symbols”, this concept affirms the pragmatic principle of reality as a social experience.

           

          Although an avid writer, Mead never managed to author a published book in his lifetime.  The only published works by Mead in existence are basically collections of his lectures and essays compiled and synthesized by his pupils.  Mind, Self & Society (1934) is perhaps the most widely recognized of these.  Other works include The Philosophy of the Present (1932), Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century (1936) and The Philosophy of the Act (1938).  Mead wrote many articles and scholarly pieces in his lifetime as well as several unpublished manuscripts.  Mead’s lack of published works in no way diminished the acclaim and respect held by his various contemporaries and colleagues.

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       Among these was John Dewey, best known for his contributions to educational philosophy.  Dewey and Mead worked together at the University of Chicago from 1894 to 1904 and, along with James Hayden Tufts, had served as the faces for modern American Pragmatism.  Although Mead and Dewey had applied their ideas to different fields of study, multiple commonalities and signature themes can be connected within their individual works.  These themes involve the interplay between experience and ideas, serving as challenge to many of the tenets of traditional education philosophy and practice.

           

       Mead persisted in juxtaposing these ideas against what he perceived to be an ancient school of thought.  These observations are evident in many of his writing and lectures, including the The Evolution of the Psychical Element (1898-1900):

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           Socrates was no less turning to the past in his idea of the education

           of a good citizen than was Aristotle in his deductive logic…The

           universal, with them, was in no sense the product of thought and

           activity.  The attitude of the thinker toward the universal was that

           of passive perception. (p. 480).

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      Thoughts such as these can be interpreted as an endorsement for a progressive educational theory, the same one espoused by Dewey in his own Experience & Education.  Although Mead did not occupy the field of education to the same degree that Dewey did, his arguments and contentions build the same philosophical foundations.

        

         Many of these have remained prevalent in the theories and philosophies that have developed since the time of Mead and Dewey.  Strong elements of their work can be found in constructivist educational theory.  Ari Sutinen supports this precise contention in his 2007 article, Constructivism and Education: Education as an Interpretive Transformation Process:

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          According to constructivism…the child functions in relation to

          its environment, constructing, modifying and interpreting the

          information s/he encounters in her/his relationship with the world                     

          (p.1)…John Dewey and George H. Mead conceived of mental activity

          in the context of human action and particularly in relation to

          problem solving in relation to human action. (p.2)

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Sutinen goes on to draw a strong correlation between constructivist and pragmatic perspectives, basically demonstrating that Mead and Dewey’s theories regarding human thinking processes were essentially constructivist in their conception.

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            This should not suggest that Mead and Dewey were entirely lockstep in their views and philosophies, but it is not difficult to find recurrent themes within the work of both men.  Experience & Education is perhaps Dewey’s seminal work regarding the transition from traditional to progressive educational philosophy.  Dewey articulates his argument regarding this transition in his closing comments:

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           The educational system must move in one way or another, either

           backward to the intellectual and moral standards of a pre-scientific

           age or forward to ever greater utilization of scientific method in the

           development of the possibilities of growing, expanding experience.

           (p.89).

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Though Education & Experience was not published until some seven years after his death, it is difficult to imagine Mead not offering a glowing endorsement of Dewey’s work.  Both men stood at the precipice of an immense transformation in how the academic and psychological communities would regard the very processes of human thought and learning.

           

          It is difficult to determine which man’s theories and philosophies had a greater impact on the other.  It is clear through their words and ideas that both men held a great esteem and respect for one another as the content of their individual works shared such compellingly similar themes.  Certainly Mead and Dewey owe much to each other as their mutual knowledge and understanding served as an intellectual knife-sharpening.  The legacy of their pragmatist concepts have left an indelible mark on the field of education and paved the way for future philosophers.                 

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References

 

Bawden, H. H., & Decker, K. S. (2008). The Evolution of the Psychical Element, By                    George Herbert Mead (Dec. 1899-March 1900 or 1898-1899). Transactions                of the Charles S. Peirce Society, 44(3), 480-507.

 

Cook, G.A. (1993). George Herbert Mead: The Making of a Social Pragmatist.                            Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

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Dewey, J. (1938).  Experience & Education.  New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

 

Mead, G.H. (1934).  Mind, Self & Society.  Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago                        Press.

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Sutinen, A. (2008). Constructivism and Education: Education as an Interpretative                     Transformational Process. Studies in Philosophy & Education, 27(1), 1-14.