JOHN DEWEY

AGED 3203

Life and Times

John Dewey

• 1859 Birth date • Grammar school #3,

Burlington, VT• 1875, High School Grad• 1879, A.B. degree -

University of Vermont, delivers commencement address

John Dewey

• 1879 - High school teacher, Oil City, PA, teaches science and algebra

• 1880-1881 - assistant principal• 1881-1882 - Principal, Lake View

Seminary, Charlotte, VT• 1882-1884 - Graduate Student in

Philosophy, John Hopkins University• 1884 - Ph.D

John Dewey

• 1884 - Teaches philosophy University of Michigan

• 1888 - University of Minnesota

• 1894 - University of Chicago

• 1904 - Columbia University (New York)

John Dewey

• Advocated practical learning

• Students should solve problems

• Schools should work to solve social problems

• Thought learning was like evolution

• First dues paying member of American Federation of Teachers

Experience and Education Traditional vs. Progressive Education

• The subject matter of today is bodies of information and skills worked out in the past -- the purpose of school is to transmit this information and skills to a new generation.

• Moral training in the schools is of forming habits by conforming to rules and standards.

Experience and Education Traditional vs. Progressive Education

• School is different from all other social institutions - School is like no other social institution.– schemes of classifications– its time schedule– its rules of order– examinations

Experience and Education Traditional vs. Progressive Education

The traditional scheme is to impose information and rules from above, from outside. It imposes adult standards, subject matter and methods upon those who are only growing only slowly towards maturity.

Experience and EducationThe Need of a Theory of Experience

• All genuine education comes about through experience.– some experiences can be mis-educative– may be immediately enjoyable, yet

form slack and careless attitude• It is not that young people do not have

experiences, but that these experiences are defective and of the wrong character.

Experience and Education Social Control

School is like a game - the teacher is the referee or umpire; as long as all know the rules and the consequences of the rules, all is well. Students (athletes) become disenchanted and argumentative when they feel as though they have been unfairly treated (penalized).

Experience and Education The Nature of Freedom

There cannot be complete quietude in a laboratory or workshop. But . . . there should be brief intervals of time for quiet reflection. They are periods of genuine reflection only when they follow after times of action and are used to organize what has been gained in periods of activity.

Experience and Education The Nature of Freedom

The old phrase “stop and think” is sound psychology. For thinking is stoppage of the immediate manifestation of impulse until that impulse has been brought into connection with other possible tendencies to action.