It is even more important today with rapid changes. The capacity to adapt was already a priority at a time when employment was relatively stable. Teaching and learning were seen as creative and exciting activities that, rather than developing limited, non-transferable skills, stressed the ability to continue to learn, reflect and adjust. “In education, the currency of these externally imposed aims is responsible for the emphasis put upon the notion of preparation for a remote future and for rendering the work of both teacher and pupil mechanical and slavish.”ĭewey also warned of “an undue emphasis upon the training of narrow specialized modes of skill at the expense of initiative, inventiveness, and re-adaptability”. Education and Rigidities imposed from “without” To demonstrate the modernity of Dewey, let’s look at a few issues that remain at the centre of quality education. But Dewey stressed that, “We do not learn from experience. There was value in enabling students to explore new worlds rather than being limited to the well-trodden path.Įxperience was important to discovery, to exploring those new worlds. Like the Enlightenment thinkers that Dewey often cited, he focused on the development of the mind and the capacity for thought. He refuses artificial distinctions or conflicts between the individual and the collective, between activity and education, between different subject matters, and between “mental” and “manual” study and work.

It is about democracy, but in a broad sense about the ethics of democracy and about developing systems of education that prepare young people to live, reflect, analyse, discuss, learn and to continue learning.ĭewey stresses that education is both formal and informal and that it is one part of a larger environment.

I will not fall into that trap, but rather, offer a few reflections based on some of the ideas contained in that important book. It has been interpreted, re-interpreted and, according to Dewey, misinterpreted many times. The American philosopher, educator, and long-time member of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) John Dewey (1959-1952) wrote “ Democracy and Education: A Philosophy of Education” a century ago.

Dewey democracy