John Dewey AKA The Dewey Decimal System

Coming home from her first day of school, Scout was upset with her teacher, Miss Caroline.  Miss Caroline told Scout that she was too far ahead of the other students and the advantage wouldn't work with her new teaching methods.  Jem called it "the Dewey Decimal System".  We later can tell that there is much confusion on what that is exactly and that's why I'm here to clear the rumors.  

The Dewey Decimal System is a technique of library classification.  Created by Melvil Dewey in 1876, this was in place to make finding and returning books easier.  Each book (if organized with the DDC), has a number and then more specifically organized with the authors last name.  This system is all based on structure for its success.

Mixing the Two Ideas

John Dewey is known as the father of "progressive education".  He, as a philosopher, thought that education should be informal.  Learning by experience, interactivity, and inquiry-based lessons would give more value to a student than memorizing facts.  While he still would have talked about formal education (school), he wanted to integrate them.  In his time, I agree that this idea works well.  Most people were farmers or laborers, rather than lawyers or doctors.  For them, they learned what they needed to do for their jobs.  Informal education molds to what is important or necessary to you, and that's why I think John Dewey pushed this concept so far.  Dewey's pedagogic tactics have not spread widely, specifically to the American public schools (yet).  

  Now that we've cleared up the myths, we can tell that they are absolute opposites while in the same field, questionably.  They both have to do with education.  But, on the other hand, they are on two different sides of the spectrum.  The Dewey Decimal System was made to put order in libraries.  John Dewey promoted the idea of flexibility in curriculum.  One was in favor of formal and the other in favor of informal education.  

  I can't wait to see what happens with this idea of Dewey philosophies.  It is kind of ironic that Miss Caroline says that she is teaching progressively, yet harnesses Scout from experiencing extra knowledge.  I'm wondering how this will play out (if Miss Caroline will end up following her intentions or if she changes them).  From only the first four chapters, I see the emphasis on education.  Digging deeper into the academic viewpoints of the story has brought a whole new perspective of the text as well.  I can't wait to read on and figure out the reasoning of the accent.