UNIVERSITY OF CASTILLA LA MANCHA

Albacetes Faculty of Education

Subject: Contemporary trends in education
Professor: Antonio Cebrin
Academic year 2016-2017

UNESCO: JOHN DEWEY

Students:
Rebeca Garca Olivares
Jos Lpez Lpez
Javier del Olmo Muoz
Andrea Trraga Snchez
Sergio Tirado Olivares
Master degree in Primary Education
2 course group B

Rebeca
John Dewey was the most significant American philosopher of the first half of the twentieth
century. His voice had a lot of influence in the USA and abroad since 1890 until his death in
1952.
His philosophy was based in the moral conviction that democracy is freedom. He devoted
his life to the construction of a persuasive philosophical argument for this conviction as well
as for the practical realization of it. His democracy ideas were more evident in his career as
an educational reformer. I sometimes think I will drop teaching philosophy directly, and
teach it via Pedagogy (Dewey, 1894). Deweys philosophical views probably reached more
readers with books aimed at educators, for example Democracy and Education (1916).
As well as him, other philosophers were also keen on the problems of education due to the
relation between the need for philosophy and the need for education. Consciously guided
education was the praxis of the philosopher.
According to philosophy, the hypothesis about the theory of experience is demonstrated
through the proper experience. So for modern societies the best institution for educating men
for these experiences, was the school. Deweys efforts to shape his own philosophy into
living fact in the schools were surrounded by controversy. Sometimes, Deweys work was
misread both to overestimate his influence, and to underplay the democratic ideals that were
at the heart of his pedagogy.

THE MAKING OF AN EDUCATOR

John Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont, in 1859. He graduated from the University of
Vermont in 1879. After been teacher for a period of time, he enrolled as a graduate student in
the department of philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. There he came under the
influence of George S. Morris. After receiving his Ph.D. in 1884, Dewey followed Morris to
the University of Michigan, and assumed leadership of the philosophy department there in
1889. While at Michigan, Dewey met his future wife, Alice Chipman, who was his student.
She had a lot of influence in the shaping of his pedagogical ideas.
Dewey started to have a great interest in public education, and he founded the Michigan
Schoolmasters Club, which fostered cooperation between state high school and college
teachers. During his stay at Chicago's University (1894-1904), he pressed for the creation of a
laboratory school where his ideas could be tested. In this period Dewey created the
fundamental principles of his Education philosophy and began to thought about the required
schools according to those principles.

Questions
TRUE/FALSE
For Dewey, the school was the best institution to educate men for experience.True
MULTIPLE CHOICE
Deweys philosophy was based on:
a) Capitalism
b) Democracy
c) Dictatorship

Personal opinion
Throughout this article we have seen that the most important thing for Dewey was educating
through experience and the best institution to educate men for experience was the school. As
well as Dewey, I think that the best way of learning is confronting problem situations.
Children use their thinking as an instrument to solve problems and they acquire knowledge
from that problematic situations. So the Curriculum should focus on children'sinterests,
including real experiences to develop knowledge and wisdom. To achieve it are needed
qualified teacher who think both as children and adults.
According to Dewey the most useful way of teaching is combining the theory with practical
work in a democratic school with a co-operative division of labour. Every child would have a
role, which makes them to feel important because their labor is recognized in the class.

Jos
PRAGMATISM AND PEDAGOGY
Through 1890 Dewey moved away from idealism to pragmatism, based on Darwinian
evolutionary and the thinking of Williams James.
His theory said that though is and evolutionary function of humanity.
His experimental pedagogy shows that there was no difference in the dynamics of the
experiences of children and adults; they learn confronting the problematic situations.
Both, in children and adults, thinking was an instrument for solving the problems of
experience, and knowledge was the accumulation of wisdom that such problem-solving.
According to Dewey when children began their formal education they brought with them
four basic native impulses: the impulse to communicate, to construct, to inquire, and to
express in finer form. The teacher's task is to make use of this raw material by guiding their

activities at school toward valuable results.

This argument faces the tradition.
On one side there was the traditional, which were curriculum-centred, step-by-step
instruction in the accumulated wisdom of civilization, they tough that another way the adults
will lose authority.
On the other side the Reformers, which were child-centred, they said that the instruction in
subject-matter should be subordinated to the natural, in relation with the childs growth, in
other way it would be suppressing the children's individuality.
The Deweys solution was seen that the child already has facts and truths, the same
has they have in the school's subjects.
Dewey criticize the traditional, because they do not connect with child's interests, he
believe that is an error to focus just in theirs impulses as they are, teachers must guide them.
Dewey asked the teachers to include problematic situations in the curriculum, so the
children have real experiences to discover knowledge.
To do this in a proper way teachers must be high qualified, being able to see the world
as a child and as an adult and he knows that the majority are not, but he hope someday they
will be.
Questions:
T/F
Dewey follow the traditional model in education. False.
Multiple choice:
According to Dewey, kids have four basic native impulses:
a.
b.
c.
d.

Communicate and Construct.

Construct and have fun.
Inquire and express in finer form.
A and C are correct.

Answer: d
Conclusion:
Even if dewey's pedagogy was not use in schools, now we can see who the reformers are
winning the battle, because now education is focusing in children, but in the way Dewey
said, guiding and developing the subjects, trying to teach in a more attractive way for them.

Sergio
Democratic and education
For Dewey, the way of teach childs character is shaped, teaching some moral aspects are
included in the school, he calls it as the `hidden curriculum, it is the formation of a certain
character, genuine basis of right living.
The aim proposal is help children to develop the character, the habits and virtues, that would
enable them to achieve self-realization so that he learn to live in a society, takes the decisin
in a democratic way.
He believed that American schools were failing to provide an environment in which
self-realization could be attained. Most schools employed highly individualistic methods,
all students in a classroom read the same books simultaneously and recite the same lessons.
In these conditions the social impulses of the child atrophied, and the teacher was unable to
take advantage of the childs natural desire.
Moreover, Social spirit was replaced with positively individualistic motives and standards
such as judgements of superiority and inferiority, and, as a consequence, the weaker
gradually lose their sense of capacity and accept a position of inferiority.
According to Dewey, School had to be organized as a co-operative community. In order to
educate in a democracy form, in which the child feels that he participates, and also
contributes.
However, creating the conditions for the development of democratic character in the
classroom was not an easy task, especially focus on adolescents, teachers could not impose
such good character on students.
So for him, the most important difficulty was believed that the most part of schools were only
designed to reproduce societies and not to transform them. His proposal is transform America
schools into instruments for the democratization of American society.

Personal opinion:
From my point of view, Dewey is right when he says that in schools, apart from theoretical
content is teaching (and for me they must be develop) determined values and habits that help
the child to live in a society, giving his point of view but also accepting the opinions of the
others.
Furthermore, I am completely agree with him with his critics to the methods of teaching so
individualistic that do not promote the motivation of the child, we should use more social
methods that allow the interaction of our students to the same time that motivate them to
continue learning. Learning theoretical lessons of memory only makes that, when the child
pass the exam, he forget all of the contents of the topic.

Questions:
T/F:
For Dewey, the most important difficulty was believed that schools were only designed to
reproduce societies and not to transform them. True
Multiple choice:
For Dewey, the reason of the American Schools failure was...
a. The use of Individualistic methods
b. The use of too many collective methods
c. There was no problem
Answer: a.
Javier
THE DEWEY SCHOOL
Dewey proposed a school to university officials that would keep theoretical work in touch
with the demands of practice. In January 1896, the Laboratory School of the University of
Chicago opened its doors. The school began with sixteen children and two teachers, but by
1903 it was providing instruction to 140 students and was staffed by twenty-three teachers
and ten graduate assistants. The institution soon became known as the Dewey School.
At the centre of the curriculum of the Dewey School was what Dewey termed the
occupation, that is, a mode of activity on the part of the child which reproduces, or runs
parallel to, some of work carried on in social life. Divided into eleven age groups, the
students pursued a variety of projects centred on particular historical or contemporary
occupations.
The 6-year-olds built a farm out of blocks, planted wheat and cotton, and processed
and transported their crop to market.
The 7-year-olds studied prehistoric life in caves of their own devising.
The 8-year-old neighbours focused their attention on the work of the sea-faring
Phoenicians, on Robinson Crusoe and adventurers, like Marco Polo, Magellan and
Columbus.
Local history and geography occupied the attention of the 9-year-olds.
Those who were 10 years old studied colonial history, constructing a replica of a
room in an early American house.
The work of the older groups of children was less strictly focused on particular
historical periods (though history remained an important part of their studies) and
centred more on scientific experiments in anatomy, electro-magnetism, political
economy, and photography.
The 13-year-olds built a substantial clubhouse when they could not find another
suitable place for their debate club to meet.

In the Laboratory School, Dewey reported, the child comes to school to do; to cook, to sew,
to work with wood and tools in simple constructive acts; within and about these acts cluster
the studieswriting, reading, arithmetic, etc. Skills such as reading were developed when
children came to recognize their usefulness in solving the problems that confronted them in
their occupational activities. Books and the ability to read are, therefore, regarded strictly as
tools.
Katherine Camp Mayhew and Anna Camp Edwards, who taught in the Laboratory School,
later provided a full account of this remarkable educational experiment. They cited evidence
of the considerable success that Dewey and his colleagues achieved in translating his theories
into practice. Their accounts were supported by the testimony of less-interested observers as
well. Providing children with first-hand experience, the problematic situations largely of
their own making, was the key to Deweys pedagogy. As far as subject-matter was
concerned, Deweys goals for education were rather conventional, only his methods were
innovative and radical.
The Dewey School was above all an experiment in education for democracy. Dewey was
fairly successful in creating a democratic community in the Laboratory School. Children
shared in the planning of their projects, and the execution of these projects was marked by a
co-operative division of labour, in which leadership roles were frequently rotated. Dewey did
have a clear vision of what he thought the schools in a thoroughly democratic society should
look like.
The life of Deweys prefigurative community was very brief and, ironically, it was a struggle
over workers control of the Laboratory School that led to its demise. In 1904 President
Harper sided with disgruntled teachers and administrators from the school founded by
Colonel Francis Parker (which had been merged with the Dewey School in 1903) who
resented incorporation into the Mr. and Mrs. Dewey School and feared that Alice Dewey in
particular would see no need to retain their services. When Harper fired Alice, Dewey
resigned and almost immediately accepted a position at Columbia University, where he
remained for the rest of his extended career. The loss of the Laboratory School left it to others
to interpret, apply and often distort Deweys pedagogical ideas and deprived him of an
extraordinary, concrete manifestation of his democratic ideals.

Questions:
T/F
The Dewey school taught the theoretical concepts through the practice. True

Multiple choice
In the Laboratory School created by Dewey:
a. Books and the ability to read were the first thing a child should learn.

b. Books and the ability to read were unnecessary.

c. Books and the ability to read were regarded strictly as tools.
Answer: c.

Conclusions
In recent decades an interest in pragmatism and John Dewey has been generated. In the field
of education, competence-based learning clearly responds to the need to adapt education and
training systems to the demands of society and the current economy. This has made this
approach to pedagogical work have been strongly installed in national and international
educational policies.

Andrea
PROGRESSIVE REFORM:
Although he never again had his own school, Dewey remained an active critic of American
education for the remainder of his career, and he also ventured abroad to lend his voice to
reform efforts in Japan, Mexico, Turkey, the USSR and China. Arriving in China in 1919,
Dewey was lionized by many Chinese intellectuals who, as one historian has said, closely
associated his thought with the very definition of modernity (Keenan, 1977, p. 34).
Deweys democratic convictions led to his involvement in disputes with a wide range of
progressive educators, including some who regarded themselves as faithful Deweyans. He
attacked administrative progressives who favoured vocational education programs that, in
his opinion, were a form of class education that made the schools a more efficient agent for
the reproduction of an undemocratic society. The kind of vocational education in which I am
interested, he said, is not one which will adapt workers to the existing industrial regime; I
am not sufficiently in love with the regime for that.
In the 1920s he was moved, in an uncharacteristic moment of public bluntness, to label their
method of simply allowing children to follow their untutored inclinations as really stupid
(Dewey, 1926, p. 59). Finally, in the 1930s with the radical social reconstructionists, whose
thinking was perhaps closest to his own, when they proposed programs of
counter-indoctrination to contest a curriculum designed to legitimate an oppressive social
order. For radicals to engage in counter-propaganda, he argued, was to demonstrate a lack of
confidence in the power of the convictions they held and the means by which they themselves
had presumably arrived at these convictions. They had not been indoctrinated into the
conclusions they had reached.
Radical democrats had to credit their students with the capability to reach the same
conclusions by the same means, not only because this was more democratic but also because

these conclusions should be subjected to the continuous scrutiny that such education would
provide. If the method of intelligence has worked in our own case, he asked, `how can we
assume that the method will not work with our students, and that it will not with them
generate ardour and practical energy? (ibid.).
Dewey received critics of other reformers, but it changed few minds. Few followed the way
out of educational confusion that he proposed. For most educators, it posed too great a threat
to traditional methods and subject-matter. At the same time, its social implications were too
radical for advocates of scientific efficiency, and not radical enough for some proponents of
social reconstruction.
Had Dewey continued to believe that the teacher was the usherer in of the true kingdom of
God, he might have been more distressed than he was that his pedagogical arguments so
often fell on deaf ears. However, after the First World War, the schools were no longer the
focus of his activism. Dewey began to more openly acknowledged that schools were
inextricably tied to prevailing structures of power. Therefore, they were used as agencies for
reproduction of the class society of industrial capitalism.
Efforts to design them into more democratic institutions repeatedly ran afoul since their were
powerful forces that wished to preserve the existing social order. Schools would take part in
the democratic social change only as they ally themselves with this or that movement of
existing social forces (Dewey, 1934, p. 207).

DEWEY s LEGACY:
Deweys philosophy of education came in the 1950s from the opponents of progressive
education, who blamed him for virtually everything that was wrong with the American public
school system. Although his actual impact upon American schools was quite limited and
conservative critics erred in confusing him with the progressives he had himself attacked,
Dewey proved to be a convenient symbol of opprobrium for fundamentalists, worried about
the decline of intellectual standards in schools and the threat this posed to a nation involved
in a Cold War with Communism.
Although many American teachers who have most probably read Dewey and have tried to
teach as Dewey would have had them teach, critics have vastly overestimated his influence.
His legacy is less one of established practice than of adversarial vision. Most schools are far
from the supremely interesting places and dangerous outposts of a humane civilization he
would have had them be (Dewey, 1922, p. 334). Yet for those who would like schools to
reach Deweys vision, his work remains a valuable resource.
QUESTIONS:

T/F: Dewey remained an active critic of American education and ventured abroad to lend his
voice to reform efforts in Japan, Mexico, Turkey, the USSR and China. TRUE
MULTIPLE CHOICE:
The kind of vocational education in which he was interested...
a) ... is NOT one which will adapt workers to the existing industrial regime; I am
not sufficiently in love with the regime for that.
b) is one which will adapt workers to the existing industrial regime; I am not
sufficiently in love with the regime for that.
c) is the one which will adapt all kind of people.
CONCLUSION:
Regarding to this topic, Dewey was a very important man who tried to change
somebody's mind. In terms of education, he had an innovative way of learning that many
people criticized. Although he was not completely agree with the regime of that time, he
struggled against the ones who did not think in the same way as him, to make life as he
wanted.

Group conclusion
According to Dewey the most useful way of teaching is combining the theory with practical
work in a democratic school with a co-operative division of labour. As his ideals were based
on democracy, the school should be a democratic institution educating men for experience.
Although his pedagogy caused a lot of controversy, nowadays many schools follow his
teaching way making education in a more attractive way to children. Schools have to use
more social methods that allow the interaction of our students to the same time that motivate
them to continue learning. Learning theoretical lessons of memory only makes that ,when the
child pass the exam, he forget all of the contents of the topic.
Education should be based on the demands and needs of the society, so lets use innovative
methodologies that encourage childrens learning, acquiring the values and habits to live in a
society.

References:
Westbrook, R. B. (1993). John Dewey. Prospects, 23(1-2), 277-291.