Experience & EducationThe great education theorist’s most lucid and concise statement on the needs, problems, and possibilities of education. Experience and Education is the most lucid and concise statement on education ever published by John Dewey, the man acknowledged to be the pre-eminent educational theorist of the twentieth century. Written more than twenty years after his comprehensive work, Democracy and Education, it demonstrates how Dewey reformulated his ideas in light of his experience with progressive schools. Analyzing both “traditional” and “progressive” education, Dr. Dewey here insists that neither is adequate because they each fail to apply the principles of a carefully developed philosophy of experience. Dewey goes on to illustrate his ideas for a philosophy of experience and its vital relation to education. He particularly urges that all teachers and educators should consider the larger issues of education rather than thinking in terms of some divisive “ism” —even one as high-minded as “progressivism.” Dewey’s philosophy, here expressed in its most essential form, predicates an American educational system that respects all sources of experience, offering a true learning situation that is both historical and social, both orderly and dynamic. |
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Page 5
... education , the moment tradition and cus- tom are departed from . It is for this reason that the con- duct of schools , based upon a new order of conceptions , is so much more difficult than is the management of schools which walk in ...
... education , the moment tradition and cus- tom are departed from . It is for this reason that the con- duct of schools , based upon a new order of conceptions , is so much more difficult than is the management of schools which walk in ...
Page 17
... educational theory is marked by opposition between the idea that education is development from within and that it is for- mation from without ; that it is based upon natural en- dowments and that education is a process of overcoming ...
... educational theory is marked by opposition between the idea that education is development from within and that it is for- mation from without ; that it is based upon natural en- dowments and that education is a process of overcoming ...
Page 21
... education was based on ready - made organization , therefore it suffices to reject the principle of organization in toto , instead of striving to discover what it means and how it is to be attained on the basis of experience . We might ...
... education was based on ready - made organization , therefore it suffices to reject the principle of organization in toto , instead of striving to discover what it means and how it is to be attained on the basis of experience . We might ...
Page 22
... educational philosophy which professes to be based on the idea of freedom may become as dogmatic as ever was the traditional education which is reacted against . For any theory and set of prac- tices is dogmatic which is not based upon ...
... educational philosophy which professes to be based on the idea of freedom may become as dogmatic as ever was the traditional education which is reacted against . For any theory and set of prac- tices is dogmatic which is not based upon ...
Page 23
... education and thereby only empha- size its importance as a means . When we do that we have a problem that is new in the story of education : How shall the young become acquainted with the past in such a way that the acquaintance is a ...
... education and thereby only empha- size its importance as a means . When we do that we have a problem that is new in the story of education : How shall the young become acquainted with the past in such a way that the acquaintance is a ...
Contents
The Nature of Freedom | 61 |
The Meaning of Purpose | 67 |
Progressive Organization of SubjectMatter | 73 |
ExperienceThe Means and Goal of Education | 89 |
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Common terms and phrases
acquaintance action activity actual adult Ameri ancient Greece attitudes based upon experience capacities cation child conduct consequences continuity and interaction continuity of experience direction ditions educa education based educative experience Either-Or philosophies ence environment exer existing Experience and Education external control factor facts and ideas failure formation freedom further experience future growth habit herent human important impulse and desire individual intel intellectual and moral intelligent involved JOHN DEWEY judgment Kappa Delta Pi knowledge learner learning life-experience live materials matter ment needs objective conditions observation old education operate past perience philosophy of education philosophy of experience practice present experience principle of continuity progressive education progressive organization progressive schools pupils purpose question relation of means rules scientific method situations skills social control teacher things tion traditional education traditional school truancy understanding vidual young
Popular passages
Page 34 - I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use ! As tho
Page 19 - I take it that the fundamental unity of the newer philosophy is found in the idea that there is an intimate and necessary relation between the processes of actual experience and education.
Page 38 - We live from birth to death in a world of persons and things which in large measure is what it is because of what has been done and transmitted from previous human activities. When this fact is ignored, experience is treated as if it were something which goes on exclusively inside an individual's body and mind. It ought not to be necessary to say that experience does not occur in a vacuum. There are some sources outside an individual which give rise to experience.
Page 60 - The only freedom that is of enduring importance is freedom of intelligence, that is to say, freedom of observation and of judgment exercised in behalf of purposes that are intrinsically worth while.
Page 43 - An experience is always what it is because of a transaction taking place between an individual and what, at the time, constitutes his environment, whether the latter consists of persons with whom he is talking about some topic or event, the subject talked about being...
Page 4 - ALL SOCIAL movements involve conflicts which are reflected intellectually in controversies. It would not be a sign of health if such an important social interest as education were not also an arena of struggles, practical and theoretical.
Page 87 - It means that scientific method is the only authentic means at our command for getting at the significance of our everyday experiences of the world in which we live.
Page 34 - The basic characteristic of habit is that every experience enacted and undergone modifies the one who acts and undergoes, while this modification affects, whether we wish it or not, the quality of subsequent experiences.
Page 27 - Unless experience is so conceived that the result is a plan for deciding upon subject-matter, upon methods of instruction and discipline, and upon material equipment and social organization of the school, it is wholly in the air.