John Dewey

John Dewey

At about the same time Montessori was conceptualizing early education in Italy, John Dewey’s (18591952) work completely redirected the course of American education with a movement known as progressivism. Dewey, known first as a philosopher, believed in pragmatism, or faith in the value of experience (practice) to inform ideas (theory). He promoted a practical approach to education, the idea that “education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living” (Dewey, 1897).

Like Montessori, Dewey believed that the curriculum should be child-centered and school should be a place where children practice life through active, hands-on activities. Dewey also believed, like Froebel, that children learn through teacher-facilitated play. He viewed classrooms and schools as incubators for democracywhere we should learn social responsibility and citizenship (Dewey, 1916). To promote later success in society, progressive schools emphasized collaborative learning and problem solving.

Dewey also thought deeply about the role of the teacher, and his concept of the teacher as a facilitator represented a big departure from the commonly accepted notion of the teacher at the front of the room delivering information to children. He stated that “the teacher is not in the school to impose certain ideas or to form certain habits in the child, but is there as a member of the community to select the influences which shall affect the child and to assist him in properly responding to these influences” (Dewey, 1897).

Dewey’s idea that schools should be places where “education is life” gave rise to thinking about curriculum in a new way. Thomas Heard Kilpatrick, one of Dewey’s students, published The Project Method in 1918, describing a scientific approach using long-term project work as a means of integrating learning across all areas of the curriculum and engaging children in topics of their own choosing. Dewey’s ideas about education as a process, teachers as collaborative partners, and curriculum as a practical and meaningful activity had an enormous impact on educators of his timean impact that is still felt today (Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, & Taubman, 2008).

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