The problem with Dewey’s focus on experience is that it puts the cart before the horse. The facts have to come before the experience. When we are planting seeds of learning, the soil is the set of facts that we already know. Those facts, far from being lifeless, are the sustainers of the life of the mind and soul. The facts give substance to the experience. The knowledge puts the experience into perspective.
.
A good example of this principle is the following.
Consider you are planning to travel to Europe for a guided tour of Catholic sites, and you have the choice of going with a Catholic group led by a priest, or going with a secular group led by a non-Catholic tour guide. Each group is going to visit some of the same sites (but not all the same). Which group would you suppose will provide a more Catholic experience for you and the others in the group?
Then consider that you have the option of studying in advance the history of the areas and sites you're going to visit. Do you suppose you would benefit from knowing something about that history before you go on your trip, or not?
In both cases, you will greatly benefit from learning in advance of your trip something about the history and Catholic traditions attached to the various regions and sites you will visit. And likewise, whether you have a priest to guide you along the way will make a great difference. Of course, it will be of even greater benefit for you if the priest is a traditional Catholic priest as distinguished from a Newchurch priest.
For if you go on your trip unprepared, without having learned in advance anything of the various histories, you will be entirely subject to the experience itself, come what may. Go check out any of the numerous guide books available at bookstores or libraries, and you will find them saying that your experience will vary tremendously from person to person, because it will be a personal interaction you will have with Europe, and you never really know what you will encounter ahead of time, so your readiness to engage the experience to the fullest will make a big difference to your enjoyment of the tour. If your trip is with non-Catholics, you could end up spending your whole time hearing about how wonderful Martin Luther was and how terrible the Catholic Church was in Europe. In all likelihood, many of the sites you would visit would be Protestant churches.
The point is, it makes a difference where you get your information! An analogy would be, "When you lie down with dogs, expect to rise with fleas." It helps your later experience greatly to do some homework first, but be careful whose version you study when you learn your FACTS.
I have an example of this. I had just one 5-minute conversation with one Newchurch parishioner, who was happy to announce her plans to visit Italy; one her stops was going to be the area of Assisi. A nearby stop was going to be Loreto, where the "Holy House" is located.
She had no idea what this "Holy House" is, so I proceeded to explain it to her briefly. I said that in the 13th century, the stone house where Our Lady received the Incarnation, and then later returned as the Holy Family to raise Our Lord Jesus together with St. Joseph, was miraculously carried across the Mediterranean Sea to Dalmatia, and then a few years later was again transported by angels across the Adriatic Sea to Italy. While I was telling her this, she stood there shaking her head, saying, "No...no...no..." She was entirely unwilling to believe anything I said about it. Since this was her first exposure to the history, she was incredulous, but not only because it was me telling her, but because she had become accustomed to doubting fantastic stories for most of her lifetime, as she was born and raised in the Novus Ordo environment of "historical criticism" of everything Catholic. Therefore, she would be unwilling to look up the history in advance of her trip, and when she went to see the Holy House firsthand, she would then be prepared not to appreciate it, but to look for every reason to doubt its history!
Following is an excerpt from
an inspirational website page describing the history of the Holy House of Loreto:
...The undaunted investigators, at any rate, discovered that this “chapel” contained an ancient altar, a beautiful statue of the “Holy Mother of God” and a cross bearing her crucified Child. Realizing it was no ordinary incident, the shepherds ran off to the local church of Saint George to awaken Father Alexander Georgevich. The puzzled priest, after investigating the clay “church” himself, could offer little explanation to the humble crowd that gathered. That night the weary old prelate, although severely crippled with arthritis, spent hours in prayer beseeching enlightenment from the “Virgin Most Powerful.” In his sleep the “Mother of Good Counsel” rewarded his humility by answering his request in a dream.“Know that his house,” she said, “is the same in which I was born and brought up. Here, at the Annunciation….I conceived the Creator of all things. Here, the Word of the Eternal Father became man. The altar which was brought with the house was consecrated by Peter, the Prince of the Apostles. This house has now come to your shores by the power of God….And now in order that you may bear testimony of all these things, be healed. Your unexpected and sudden recovery shall confirm the truth of what I have declared to you.”The next day the sudden disappearance of Father Georgevich’s familiar malady was quite obvious. He then announced that it was she, who is called “Health of the Sick” who had cured him and related the vision of the night before. The peasants of Tersatto now knew for sure that this was the sacred little home of their Savior. They venerated it accordingly.Then suddenly on December 10, 1294, three years later, the little house disappeared as mysteriously as it had come. This time however, the angels were not so successful in bearing it away without notice! The alert shepherds of Tersatto reported the departure. And across the Adriatic Sea the happy victims of insomnia, who strolled about — rushed home with reports of a mysterious passage overhead of a little house — borne aloft by angels. The awesomeness of the spectacle gave hint that it was the work of the Son of the “Queen of Angels.”To this very day the people of Tersatto in Dalmatia (Yugoslavia), as well as people in the Italian Marche region, on the night of December ninth and tenth at three a.m. rise to the sound of exalted bells and light their customary bonfires as they sing litanies of praise to the “Cause of Our Joy.”Across the sea in Italy a little plain called Banderuolo, four miles from the city of Lecanati welcomed the Holy House when the angels lowered its uneven walls onto the wooded area. It took almost no time for people to hear of the arrival of this strange airborne house. Thousands of people began to make pilgrimages to it and it rapidly gained a reputation as a place of cures. But unfortunately as the pilgrims increased, so did the bandits that lurked in the surrounding forest. Slowly the house of prayer became surrounded by a den of thieves. Feeling the same justified anger that once compelled Him to cast the buyers and sellers from His Father’s House, Our Lord withdrew the House itself!Once again the soft flutter of angel’s wings stirred the night air as they relocated the home of the “House of Gold.” This time its foundationless walls settled down on the Antici property in Lecanati. Tradition tells us, not long after this that the two brothers who owned the property took to fighting. The cause of the riff was probably over the Holy House itself, each claiming to own the plot it occupied or perhaps taking credit for its having chosen the land because of their personal holiness! Tradition calls it a quarrel, but it must have been quite brutal to have caused the “Refuge of Sinners” to abandon the site. At any rate as soon as the Santa Casa moved — the brothers reconciled..
..
There are several Internet sites that provide accounts of the history of the Holy House of Loreto. For reference exemplifying the principle that
it makes a difference where you get your information, below is an excerpt from
a secular site that covers the same topic:
.
.
.
According to a 14th century legend, after the Holy Land came under the control of Islam in 1263, the Holy House was flown by angels to Dalmatia (in modern Croatia) in 1291, where a vision revealed it to be Mary’s house. Three years later, in 1294, it was again transported by angels to Recanati and finally, in 1295, to a laurel grove, the ‘Lauretanum,’ for which Loreto is named. The myth of the Holy House states that when the Holy House was lowered into place the nearby trees bowed down in respect.
.
Analysis of literary sources, however, indicates that the transport of the Santa Casa happened by sea and not through the assistance of angels. During the medieval period of Christian history it was common for monks and crusaders to be called ‘angels’ by the common people, this explaining the legend of ‘angels’ flying the house from the Holy Land to Loreto. Archaeological evidence and docuмents uncovered in 1962 suggest that the house may indeed derive from the region of Nazareth as its limestone and cedar construction materials are not available in the area of Loreto.
.
The Holy House itself is quite small, and its single room with a small altar contains a Black Madonna statue and a blue ceiling with golden stars. In 1469, a large Basilica was built over the Holy House. Having been remodeled and reconstructed numerous times over the ensuing centuries, the Basilica has a Renaissance exterior and a Gothic interior.
.
.
This latter-referenced site ends by giving equal credence to the trans Atlantic flight of Charles Lindbergh and the Apollo 9 mission to the moon, which, apparently, would garner much more credibility than mythical "angels" carrying a stone house over the Mediterranean!
Topic: John Dewey’s Theories and How to Avoid Them in Your Homeschool (Read 978 times)