John Dewey

Philosophy in Education

An educator and philosopher, John Dewey was best known as America's preeminent philosopher of education and founder of pragmatic philosophy. He placed his greatest efforts into convincing Americans that ethics could be directly applied to life in the new industrial world. Dewey argued that the survival of democracy depended on the application of philosophical ethics to everyday life. It was in his attempts to relate his philosophy to education that he made his greatest impact.

Dewey came to believe that the consequences of his philosophy would best be revealed in education. To test his theories, Dewey established a school called the Laboratory School. He also published his first book on education, The School and Society, in which he laid out his philosophy of what role education, should play in a democratic society. He wrote that each school should function as a community that reflects the larger society and trains children into membership in that society. Once the schools accomplished that by instilling students with a "spirit of service and providing him with the instruments of effective self-direction, we shall have the deepest and best guarantee of a larger society that is worthy, lovely, and harmonious."

In 1904, Dewey joined the faculty at Columbia University, where he remained for the rest of his career. During his years at Columbia, he became publicly known. He wrote several books elaborating his philosophical argument that ethics was not a separate domain from everyday life, but should be manifest in social, political, and economic issues. In 1916, he published Democracy and Education, in which he laid out his conception that democracy, was not just a political system but also a form of social life that required educated citizens. His conception of education differed from other educational philosophers. Education was a social process, Dewey argued, that nurtured the social, intellectual, and aesthetic growth of individuals, which then led to the renewal of society. Because of the importance that education held for their futures, democratic societies required an education that would nurture in individuals social relationships and control, while fostering social change without disorder.

On a practical level, Dewey urged educators to create schools that taught schoolchildren how to be individual actors in a democracy. Because a democracy required that each individual make decisions, education should, argued Dewey, train students in scientific inquiry. An important component of his proposed curriculum was the education of the whole individual through instruction in both intellectual and manual subjects. The purpose of this was to give all students, regardless of their future occupation, an appreciation of the skills on which the new industrial society depended. Dewey argued that this type of education would flow naturally with children's natural curiosity and sense of wonder. In order for students to have the opportunity to develop decision-making abilities, he argued that the schools must be reformed as democratic communities in which students are allowed to make decisions on their own and create their own knowledge. Students would do this by engaging in ongoing communication, experimentation, ...