John Dewey

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the life and work of John Dewey. His philosophical theory of education is examined. The paper covers Dewey's views of experiential education, as well as progressive education. The issue of democracy in the classroom is highlighted in the paper. The paper assesses the usefulness of the Dewey system in today's educational environment.

From the Paper:

"The easiest starting point for any appraisal of John Dewey's theory of education is its simplicity, in which lies both its beauty and its limitations. The second easiest place is in the current child-rearing conduct known as "Time Out," which seems a sort of precursor or possibly fellow-traveler to such modish childrearing practices as self-expression, child-centered curricula, the teacher as coach, appreciating diversity. Indeed, one might lay Ebonics at Dewey's feet, also, if one stretched a point, because education doesn't get more child-centered than equating a colloquial patois with a language that should be learned and used as a basis for human thought. In fact, that makes about as much sense as codifying the linguistic habits of any group of uneducated people living anywhere and speaking any language, and attempting to pass it off as a legitimate language in its own right. In fact, Dewey himself used language at its highest levels, spending his "long life tirelessly writing voluminous essays in a dense, opaque style accessible mainly to readers with formal training in philosophy and logic"(Eakin, 2000)."

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