John Dewey Influence On Education

John Dewey John Dewy was born on October 20th, 1859, and died at age ninety-two in New York City on June 1st 1952. He was born in the city of Burlington, Vermont, his parents’ names are Archibald Dewey and Luana Rich. Dewey was the third of four children, which spent most of their childhood in Burlington. He went to a nearby High school, and graduated college at the University of Vermont in 1879. Soon to get his PhD in 1884 at John Hopkins University in Maryland. After receiving his degree, he starts teaching philosophy at the University of Michigan in 1884-1888 and 1889-1894. He was an American Psychologist, Philosopher, Social Critic, and Political activist. During the year of 1886 he married to his spouse Alice Chipman, and had six children …show more content…
He supports women’s suffrage, progressive education, educator’s rights, humanistic movement, and world peace. He was known for his thoughts concerning education. Dewey is the founder of the Pragmatism Movement, which is a Philosophical Movement that began in the United States in the 1870’s. Dewey was a leader of the Progressive Movement in education in the United States in the 1890-1920s and was said to be “The Greatest Educational Theorist.” He wrote many books during his time some being, “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology” (1896), “My Pedagogic Creed” (1897), “Influence of Darwin on Philosophy” (1910), “Other Essay in Contemporary Thought” (1910), “How We Think” (1910), “Democracy and Education” (1917), “Education Today” (1940), etc. One of his most major works, “The School and Society: Being three Lectures” was published in 1899, one of the first work on describing his views on education. The book describes the reasoning of the University Elementary school, contained many lectures and colleges views, and is the foundation of his later works about Education. Dewey argues that the progressive approach, should be attainable for …show more content…
He emphasized that we need to learn by doing. Dewey’s approach to schooling is very child-centered. Child-centered meaning he wanted the focus to be in the child’s interests, and that they should be allowed to explore their environments. In his book, Experience and Education he describes two different types of schooling. The first being Traditional. Traditional learning is described to be lacking the understanding of children. Traditional learning focuses on content, and dictates the learning of children. Children are being taught to be obedient to the teachers, because the teachers have authority over their students. The second type of schooling being Progressive, Dewey being in favor of. Progressive learning is not focused on the content, but more of the children’s interest. Students should be invested in what they are learning, and what they are learning should be relevant to their own lives. Progressive Movement is in favor of a more “hands on” approach, learning by doing. They should be learning practical life skills as the curriculum. Which allows students to be able to learn. “Were all instructors to realize that the quality of mental process, not the production of correct answers, is the measure of educative growth something hardly less than a revolution in teaching would be