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- Put briefly, Dewey believed that learning was socially constructed, and that brain-based pedagogy (not his words) should place children, rather than curriculum and institutions, at its center. Effective learning required students to use previous (and prevailing) experiences to create new meaning–that is, to ‘learn.’
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John Dewey (1859–1952) developed extraordinarily influential educational and social theories that had a lasting influence on psychology, pedagogy, and political philosophy, among other fields.
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Why is John Dewey important?
- Overview
- Being, nature, and experience
- Nature and the construction of ends
- The precarious
- Histories
- Ends and goods
John Dewey was an American philosopher and educator who was a founder of the philosophical movement known as pragmatism, a pioneer in functional psychology, and a leader of the progressive movement in education in the United States.
Where was John Dewey educated?
John Dewey graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Vermont in 1879 and received a doctorate in philosophy from Johns Hopkins University in 1884.
How did John Dewey impact the world?
John Dewey believed that a democratic society of informed and engaged inquirers was the best means of promoting human interests. To argue for this philosophy, Dewey taught at universities and wrote influential books such as Democracy and Education (1916) and Experience and Nature (1925).
John Dewey (born October 20, 1859, Burlington, Vermont, U.S.—died June 1, 1952, New York, New York) American philosopher and educator who was a cofounder of the philosophical movement known as pragmatism, a pioneer in functional psychology, an innovative theorist of democracy, and a leader of the progressive movement in education in the United States.
In order to develop and articulate his philosophical system, Dewey first needed to expose what he regarded as the flaws of the existing tradition. He believed that the distinguishing feature of Western philosophy was its assumption that true being—that which is fully real or fully knowable—is changeless, perfect, and eternal and the source of whatever reality the world of experience may possess. Plato’s forms (abstract entities corresponding to the properties of particular things) and the Christian conception of God were two examples of such a static, pure, and transcendent being, compared with which anything that undergoes change is imperfect and less real. According to one modern version of the assumption, developed by the 17th-century philosopher René Descartes, all experience is subjective, an exclusively mental phenomenon that cannot provide evidence of the existence or the nature of the physical world, the “matter” of which is ultimately nothing more than changeless extension in motion. The Western tradition thus made a radical distinction between true reality on the one hand and the endless varieties and variations of worldly human experience on the other.
Dewey held that this philosophy of nature was drastically impoverished. Rejecting any dualism between being and experience, he proposed that all things are subject to change and do change. There is no static being, and there is no changeless nature. Nor is experience purely subjective, because the human mind is itself part and parcel of nature. Human experiences are the outcomes of a range of interacting processes and are thus worldly events. The challenge to human life, therefore, is to determine how to live well with processes of change, not somehow to transcend them.
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Philosophy 101
Dewey developed a metaphysics that examined characteristics of nature that encompassed human experience but were either ignored by or misrepresented by more traditional philosophers. Three such characteristics—what he called the “precarious,” “histories,” and “ends”—were central to his philosophical project.
For Dewey, a precarious event is one that somehow makes ongoing experience problematic; thus, any obstacle, disruption, danger, or surprise of any kind is precarious. As noted earlier, because humanity is a part of nature, all things that humans encounter in their daily experience, including other humans and the social institutions they inhabit, are natural events. The arbitrary cruelty of a tyrant or the kindness shown by a stranger is as natural and precarious as the destruction wrought by a flood or the vibrant colours of a sunset. Human ideas and moral norms must also be viewed in this way. Human knowledge is wholly intertwined with precarious, constantly changing nature.
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The constancy of change does not imply a complete lack of continuity with the past stages of natural processes. What Dewey meant by a history was a process of change with an identifiable outcome. When the constituent processes of a history are identified, they become subject to modification, and their outcome can be deliberately varied and secured....
Since at least the time of Aristotle (384–322 bce), many Western philosophers have made use of the notion of end, or final cause—i.e., a cause conceived of as a natural purpose or goal (see teleology). In ethics, ends are the natural or consciously determined goals of moral actions; they are moral absolutes, such as happiness or “the good,” that hu...
Dewey highlights two core principles: (1) the continuity of experience and (2) interaction between internal (mental) and objective (external) conditions of learning. He discusses issues of social control and freedom, and how teachers can help students form clear learning purposes.
Nov 1, 2018 · John Dewey (1859–1952) was one of American pragmatism’s early founders, along with Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, and arguably the most prominent American intellectual for the first half of the twentieth century.
May 15, 2023 · Summary: John Dewey's theory is an ode to experiential learning and has been praised for its educational and social impact. Let's analyze it. How To Learn By Doing, According To John Dewey.
John Dewey is credited as founding a philosophical approach to life called ‘pragmatism’, and his approaches to education and learning have been influential internationally and endured over time.
Summary. John Dewey’s writings on schooling are extensive, and characteristically wide-ranging: teachers are expected to think deeply about knowledge construction, how we think and learn, the purpose of curriculum in the life of the child, and the role of school and societal reform.
