Part 4 of this blog series should be on Dewey’s take on curriculum. However, if you’ve read my posts: Experiential Learning and Neurophilosophy and Education, I really cover that subject pretty throughly, I suppose I just got a little ahead of myself because of my enthusiasm for Dewey. I will however provide a brief summary regarding curriculum before I move on to “Drawing Conclusions”. Continue reading
According to Dewey teachers are “the organs through which pupils are brought into effective connection with the material” (Dewey, 1938, L. 121). Dewey recognizes teachers as not only the main communicators of knowledge and skills, but also the enforcers of rules of conduct (Dewey, 1938, L. 121). The role of teachers in Dewey’s ‘new education’ classrooms is still to be a communicator of knowledge and enforcer of rules of conduct; however, the way in which teachers fulfill these roles is drastically different from those teaching in a traditional classroom. Continue reading
To understand Dewey’s philosophy of education, I think you need to examine four key things: 1. the purpose of schools, 2. the role of teachers, 3. the curriculum, and 4. educative experiences (I explored this concept in my post: Experiential Learning). To get started, we first must clarify the purpose of schools, because it is in our schools that we find teachers, curricula, and hopefully educative experiences. Continue reading
For John Dewey, a “participatory democracy is the form of human society that would best enable all human beings to lead long, healthy, active, peaceful, virtuous, happy lives” (Benson, 2007, p. xii). He believes education is the key to creating a participatory democracy and ergo the key to creating the best possible society. In Experience and Education, John Dewey introduces us to the historical battle between traditional education and progressive education. Continue reading
The type of education that Dewey envisioned, and that I too would like to see in classrooms around the world is an education based on experience. You might find it interesting that Dewey’s philosophy is largely inline with how the brain functions and well supported by scientific evidence. However, before we get down to the science, or in this case the neurophilosophy, it’s important to recognize a few key terms: situation, objective conditions, and internal conditions. Continue reading
Hands down my favorite educational philosopher of all time is John Dewey. He had his critics, and maybe some of his thoughts were a little out there and debatable, but when it comes down it, I think this guy had the purpose of education and learning down to a T, or to be more precise, an E. Continue reading
