John Dewey (1859–1952)

John Dewey, the founder of instrumentalism, is widely considered the single most influential figure in the history of American educational thought. At the same time, his ideas and beliefs have been frequently misunderstood and misinterpreted, leading to the misapplication of his theories.

Dewey grew up in Vermont where he attended public schools and the University of Vermont. As a graduate student in philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, he was deeply influenced by the ideas of Charles S. Pierce and William James, founders of pragmatist philosophy. Dewey recognized the implications for education of Peirce’s argument that ideas, or propositions, have worth only if they make a difference in future thoughts or actions. Calling his own philosophy instrumentalism to emphasize the principle that ideas are instruments, Dewey argued that philosophy and education, both involve the practical, experimental attempt to improve the human condition.

The public school curriculum in the nineteenth century was scholarly and classical, designed to improve the mind by equipping it with large doses of approved culture. Dewey denounced this curriculum as totally unsuited to the demands of newly industrialized society of the United States. He claimed that the schools were divorced from life and that they failed to teach children how to use knowledge. Defining education as a "continuous reconstruction of experience" Dewey said that schools should teach children not what to think but how to think. In Democracy and Education, published in 1916, Dewey pointed out that Americans were being called on to make crucial political decisions unprecedented in history and that the schools offered no preparation for the responsibility of citizenship in a democracy. Dewey called for concentrated study of democratic processes as they are manifested in the units of political organization with which the child is familiar—the school, the local community, and the state government—in ascending order of complexity. But his most radical suggestion was that students be given the power to make decisions affecting life in the school in a democratic way. Participation in life, rather than preparation for it, he considered the watchword of an effective education.

In 1896, Dewey established the University Laboratory School, an elementary school at the University of Chicago. It was experimental in two senses: in its use of experiment and inquiry as the method by which the children learned and in its role as a laboratory for the transformation of the schools. The activities and occupations of adult life served as the core of the curriculum and the model teaching method. Children began by studying and imitating simple domestic and industrial tasks. In later years they studied the historical development of industry, invention, group living, and nature. Dewey wrote that we must "make each one of our schools an embryonic community life, active with types of occupations that reflect the life of the larger society and permeated with the spirit of art, history, and science."

The late 1920s to the early 1940s, the era of progressive education, saw a massive attempt to implement Dewey’s ideas, but the rigid (and often inaccurate) manner in which they were interpreted led to remarkable extravagances in some progressive schools. For instance, some educators considered it useless to teach geography because maps changed so rapidly. The role of subject matter was gradually played down in progressive schools, replaced by a stress on method and process. The rationale was that it was more important to produce a "good citizen" than a person who was "educated" in the classical sense. Well into his nineties, Dewey fought vehemently against these corruptions of his views.

The centrality of John Dewey’s thought to American education has waxed and waned over the years. Traditionally more popular in universities than in actual classroom practice, Dewey is often invoked by people attempting to make the schools more humanistic and the curriculum more relevant to the current world. Whether in favor or out, John Dewey represents the United States’ most distinctive contribution to educational thought.

Visit the following web sites for more information on John Dewey:

Center for Dewey Studies

http://www.siu.edu/~deweyctr/index2.html

Link to more information about John Dewey at the Center for Dewey Studies at Southern Illinois University.

Gallery of Educational Theorists

http://www.newfoundations.com/GALLERY/Gallery.html

The authors of this site analyze the contributions of several educational theorists, including John Dewey, using many of the same philosophical questions described in this chapter of your textbook.

Informal Education

http://www.infed.org/thinkers/default.htm

The Thinkers section of the Encyclopedia page at the Informal Education web site contains further information on several people mentioned in this chapter, including John Dewey, focusing on their ideas about informal education.

Thinkers on Education

http://www.ibe.unesco.org/International/Publications/Thinkers/thinhome.htm

In 1993 and 1994, Prospects, the quarterly journal of education published by UNESCO, published a series of profiles on 100 educational theorists, including John Dewey.