John Dewey
John Dewey
John Deweywas an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey is one of the primary figures associated with the philosophy of pragmatism and is considered one of the founders of functional psychology. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Dewey as the 93rd most cited psychologist of the 20th century. A well-known public intellectual, he was also a major voice of progressive education and liberalism. Although Dewey...
mean doe belief
The belief that all genuine education comes about through experience does not mean that all experiences are genuinely or equally educative.
mean intelligent thinking
Intelligent thinking means an increment of freedom in action-an emancipation from chance and fatality. 'Thought' represents the suggestion of a way of response that is different from that which would have been followed if intelligent observation had not effected an inference as to the future.
communication men order
Men live in a community in virtue of the things which they have in common; and communication is the way in which they come to possess things in common. What they must have in common in order to form a community or society are aims, beliefs, aspirations, knowledge - a common understanding - likemindedness as the sociologists say.
influence environment save-me
An inanimate being is, of course, continuous with its surroundings; but the environing circumstances do not, save metaphorically, constitute an environment. For the inorganic being is not concerned in the influences which affect it.
commitment criticism atheism
Criticism of the commitment of religion to the supernatural is thus positive in import.
philosophy healing culture
It is not a nature cure, a system of faith healing, or a physical culture, or a medical treatment, or a semi-occult philosophy. As to what it is, Dewey's brief but striking description appeals most and has the least chance of being proved incorrect: 'It the Alexander Technique bears the same relation to education that education itself bears to all other human activities.'
environment individual
The words "environment," "medium" denote something more than surroundings which encompass an individual. They denote the specific continuity of the surroundings with his own active tendencies.
past history imagination
Our historic imagination is at best slightly developed. We generalise and idealise the past egregiously. We set up little toys to stand as symbols for centuries and the complicated lives of countless individuals.
self expression community
The good society was, like the good self, a diverse yet harmonious, growing yet unified whole, a fully participatory democracy in which the powers and capacities of the individuals that comprised it were harmonized by their cooperative activities into a community that permitted the full and free expression of individuality.
educational past quality
Knowledge is humanistic in quality not because it is about human products in the past, but because of what it does in liberating human intelligence and human sympathy. Any subject matter which accomplishes this result is humane, and any subject matter which does not accomplish it is not even educational.
shadow bigs big-business
Politics is the shadow cast on society by big business.
goal psychology action
Purposeful action is thus the goal of all that is truly educative.
mistake failure thinking
We only think when we are confronted with problems.
inspirational education mean
Education, in its broadest sense, is the means of this social continuity of life.