John Dewey
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Memorandum Number Seven: The Order's Objectives For Education
We can deduce The Order's objectives for education from evidence already presented and by examining the work and influence of John Dewey, the arch creator of modern educational theory.
How do we do this? We first need to examine Dewey's relationship with The Order. Then compare Dewey's philosophy with Hegel and with the philosophy and objectives of modern educational practice.
These educational objectives have not, by and large, been brought about by governmental action. In fact, if the present state of education had been brought about by legislation, it would have been challenged on the grounds of unconstitutionality.
On the contrary, the philosophy and practice of today's system has been achieved by injection of massive private funds by foundations under influence, and sometimes control, of The Order. This implementation we will describe in a future volume, How The Order Controls Foundations. In fact, the history of the implementation of Dewey's objectives is also the history of the larger foundations, i.e., Ford, Carnegie, Rockefeller, Peabody, Sloan, Slater and Twentieth Century.
How John Dewey Relates To The Order
John Dewey worked for his doctorate at Johns Hopkins University from 1882-86 under Hegelian philosopher George Sylvester Morris. Morris in turn had his doctorate from University of Berlin and studied under the same teachers as Daniel Gilman, i.e., Adolph Trendelenberg and Hermann Ulrici.
Neither Morris nor Dewey were members of The Order, but the link is clear. Gilman hired Morris, knowing full well that Hegelianism is a totally integrated body of knowledge and easy to recognize. It is as different from the British empirical school of John Stuart Mill as night and day.
John Dewey's psychology was taken from G. Stanley Hall, the first American student to receive a doctorate from Wilhelm Wundt at University of Leipzig. Gilman knew exactly what he was getting when he hired Hall. With only a dozen faculty members, all were hired personally by the President.
In brief, philosophy and psychology came to Dewey from academics hand-picked by The Order.
From Johns Hopkins Dewey went as Professor of Philosophy to University of Michigan and in 1886 published Psychology, a blend of Hegelian philosophy applied to Wundtian experimental psychology. It sold well. In 1894 Dewey went to University of Chicago and in 1902 was appointed Director of the newly founded -- with Rockefeller money -- School of Education.
The University of Chicago itself had been founded in 1890 with Rockefeller funds -- and in a future volume we will trace this through Frederick Gates (of Hartford, Connecticut), and the Pillsbury family (The Order). The University of Chicago and Columbia Teachers' College were the key training schools for modern education.
The Influence Of Dewey
Looking back at John Dewey after 80 years of his influence, he can be recognized as the pre-eminent factor in the collectivization, or Hegelianization, of American Schools. Dewey was consistently a philosopher of social change. That's why his impact has been so deep and pervasive. And it is in the work and implementation of the ideas of John Dewey that we can find the objective of The Order.
When The Order brought G. Stanley Hall from Leipzig to Johns Hopkins University, John Dewey was already there, waiting to write his doctoral dissertation on "The Psychology of Kant." Already a Hegelian in philosophy, he acquired and adapted the experimental psychology of Wundt and Hall to his concept of education for social change. To illustrate this, here's a quote from John Dewey in My Pedagogic Creed:"The school is primarily a social institution. Education being a social process, the school is simply that form of community life in which all those agencies are concentrated that will be most effective in bringing the child to share in the inherited resources of the race, and to use his own powers for social ends. Education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living."
What we learn from this is that Dewey's education is not child centered but State centered, because for the Hegelian, "social ends" are always State ends.
This is where the gulf of misunderstanding between modern parents and the educational system begins. Parents believe a child goes to school to learn skills to use in the adult world, but Dewey states specifically that education is "not a preparation for future living." The Dewey educational system does not accept the role of developing a child's talents but, contrarily, only to prepare the child to function as a unit in an organic whole -- in blunt terms a cog in the wheel of an organic society. Whereas most Americans have moral values rooted in the individual, the values of the school system are rooted in the Hegelian concept of the State as the absolute. No wonder there is misunderstanding!
The Individual Child
When we compare Hegel, John Dewey, and today's educational thinkers and doers, we find an extraordinary similarity.
For Hegel the individual has no value except as he or she performs a function for society:"The State is the absolute reality and the individual himself has objective existence, truth and morality only in his capacity as a member of the State."
John Dewey tried to brush the freedom of the individual to one side. In an article, "Democracy and Educational Administration" (School & Society, XVL, 1937, p. 457) Dewey talks about the "lost individual," and then restates Hegel in the following way: "freedom is the participation of every mature human being in formation of the values that regulate the living of men together." This is pure Hegel, i.e., man finds freedom only in obedience to the State. As one critic, Horace M. Kallen stated, John Dewey had a "blindness to the sheer individuality of individuals."
In other words, for Dewey man has no individual rights. Man exists only to serve the State. This is directly contradictory to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution with the preamble "We the people." They then go on to define the rights of the state which are always subordinate and subject to the will of "We the people."
This, of course, is why modern educationists have great difficulty in introducing the Constitution into school work. Their ideas follow Hegel and Dewey and indirectly the objectives of The Order. For example:"An attempt should be made to redress the present overemphasis on individualism in current programs ... students need to develop a sense of community and collective identity." (Educational Leadership, May 1982, William B. Stanley, Asst. Professor, Dept. of Curriculum and Instruction, Louisiana State University).
The Purpose Of Education
What then is the purpose of education, if the individual has no rights and exists only for the State?
There was no need for Hegel to describe education, and so far as we know there is no statement purely on education in Hegel's writings. It is unnecessary. For Hegel every quality of an individual exists only at the mercy and will of the State. This approach is reflected in political systems based on Hegel whether it be Soviet Communism or Hitlerian national socialism. John Dewey follows Hegel's organic view of society. For example:"Education consists either in the ability to use one's powers in a social direction or else in ability to share in the experience of others and thus widen the individual consciousness to that of the race" (Lectures For The First Course In Pedagogy).
This last sentence is reminiscent of the Hitlerian philosophy of race (i.e., right Hegelianism).
And today's educators reflect this approach. Here's a quote from Assemblyman John Vasconcellos of California, who also happens to be Chairman of the Joint Committee on the Master Plan for Higher Education and the Education Goals Committee for the California State Assembly -- a key post:"It is now time for a new vision of ourselves, of man, of human nature and of human potential, and a new theory of politics and institutions premised upon that vision. What is that vision of Man? That the natural, whole, organismic human being is loving ... that man's basic thrust is towards community" (quoted in Rex Myles, Brotherhood and Darkness, p. 347).
What is this "widen(ing) the individual consciousness" (Dewey) and "thrust ... towards community" (Vasconcellos)?
Stripped of the pedantic language it is new world order, a world organic society. But there is no provision for a global organic order within the Constitution. In fact, it is illegal for any government officer or elected official to move the United States towards such an order as it would clearly be inconsistent with the Constitution. To be sure, Dewey was not a government official, but Vasconcellos has taken an oath of allegiance to the Constitution.
The popular view of a global order is probably that we had better look after our problems at home before we get involved in these esoteric ideas. Political corruption, pitifully low educational standards, and insensitive bureaucracy are probably of more concern to Americans.
It's difficult to see what the new world order has to do with education of children, but it's there in the literature. Fichte, Hegel's predecessor from whom many of his philosophical ideas originated, had a definite concept of a League of Nations (Volkerbund) and the idea of a league to enforce peace. Fichte asserted "As this federation spreads further and gradually embraces the whole earth, perpetual peace begins, the only lawful relation among states ..."
The National Education Association, the lobby for education, produced a program for the 1976 Bicentennial entitled "A Declaration Of Interdependence: Education For A Global Community."
On page 6 of this document we find:"We are committed to the idea of Education for Global Community. You are invited to help turn the commitment into action and mobilizing world education for development of a world community."
An objective almost parallel to Hegel is in Self Knowledge And Social Action by Obadiah Silas Harris, Associate Professor of Educational Management and Development New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico:"When community educators say that community education takes into consideration the total individual and his total environment, they mean precisely this: the field of community education includes the individual in his total psycho-physical structure and his entire ecological climate with all its ramifications -- social, political, economical, cultural, spiritual, etc. It seeks to integrate the individual within himself (sic) and within his community until the individual becomes a cosmic soul and the community the world."
And on page 84 of the same book:"The Cosmic soul ... the whole human race is going to evolve an effective soul of its own -- the cosmic soul of the race. That is the future of human evolution. As a result of the emergence of the universal soul, there will be a great unification of the entire human race, ushering into existence a new era, a new dawn of unique world power."
This last quote sounds even more like Adolph Hitler than Assemblyman John Vasconcellos. It has the same blend of the occult, the ethnic and absolutism.
In conclusion we need only quote the Constitution, the basic body of law under which the United States is governed.
The generally held understanding of the Constitution on the relationship between the individual and the State is that the individual is Supreme, the State exists only to serve individuals and the State has no power except by express permission of the people.
This is guaranteed by Amendments IX and X of the Constitution.
Amendment IX reads,"The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the People."
Note, the "retained". And,
Amendment X reads,"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
In brief, the proposals of John Dewey and his followers are unconstitutional. They would never have seen the light of day in American schoolrooms unless they had been promoted by The Order with its enormous power.
Mind Blank - The Order's Objective For Education
-- America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull and Bones, by Antony C. Sutton
John Dewey
Born October 20, 1859
Burlington, Vermont, United States
Died June 1, 1952 (aged 92)
New York, New York, United States
Alma mater University of Vermont
Johns Hopkins University
Era 20th-century philosophy
Region Western philosophy
School Pragmatism
Instrumentalism[1]
Institutions University of Michigan
University of Chicago
University of Chicago Laboratory Schools
Columbia University
Main interests
Philosophy of education, epistemology, journalism, ethics
Notable ideas
Reflective thinking[2]
American Association of University Professors
Immediate empiricism
Inquiry into Moscow show trials about Trotsky
Educational progressivism
Occupational psychosis
Influences: Plato · Locke · Rousseau · Kant · Hegel · Darwin · Peirce · Green · William James · Mead · George · Ward · Wundt · Parker
Influenced: Influenced[hide]
Veblen · B.R. Ambedkar · Santayana · Martin · Kaplan · Hu Shih · Hook · Greene · Richard McKeon · Margaret Naumburg · Putnam · Chomsky · Habermas · Rorty · West · Park · Durkheim · Herbert Schneider · Mills
John Dewey (/ˈduːi/; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey is one of the primary figures associated with the philosophy of pragmatism and is considered one of the fathers of functional psychology. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Dewey as the 93rd most cited psychologist of the 20th century.[3] A well-known public intellectual, he was also a major voice of progressive education and liberalism.[4][5] Although Dewey is known best for his publications about education, he also wrote about many other topics, including epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics, art, logic, social theory, and ethics. He was a major educational reformer for the 20th century.
The overriding theme of Dewey's works was his profound belief in democracy, be it in politics, education, or communication and journalism. As Dewey himself stated in 1888, while still at the University of Michigan, "Democracy and the one, ultimate, ethical ideal of humanity are to my mind synonymous."[6]
Known for his advocacy of democracy, Dewey considered two fundamental elements—schools and civil society—to be major topics needing attention and reconstruction to encourage experimental intelligence and plurality. Dewey asserted that complete democracy was to be obtained not just by extending voting rights but also by ensuring that there exists a fully formed public opinion, accomplished by communication among citizens, experts, and politicians, with the latter being accountable for the policies they adopt.
Life and works
John Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont to a family of modest means.[7] He was one of four boys born to Archibald Sprague Dewey and Lucina Artemisia Rich Dewey. Their second son was also named John, but he died in an accident on January 17, 1859. The second John Dewey was born October 20, 1859, forty weeks after the death of his older brother. Like his older, surviving brother, Davis Rich Dewey, he attended the University of Vermont, where he was initiated into Delta Psi, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa[8] in 1879. A significant professor of Dewey's at the University of Vermont was Henry Augustus Pearson Torrey (H. A. P. Torrey), the son-in-law and nephew of former University of Vermont president Joseph Torrey. Dewey studied privately with Torrey between his graduation from Vermont and his enrollment at Johns Hopkins University.[9][10]
After two years as a high-school teacher in Oil City, Pennsylvania and one year as an elementary-school teacher in the small town of Charlotte, Vermont, Dewey decided that he was unsuited for teaching primary or secondary school. After studying with George Sylvester Morris, Charles Sanders Peirce, Herbert Baxter Adams, and G. Stanley Hall, Dewey received his Ph.D. from the School of Arts & Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. In 1884, he accepted a faculty position at the University of Michigan (1884–88 and 1889–94) with the help of George Sylvester Morris. His unpublished and now lost dissertation was titled "The Psychology of Kant." In 1894 Dewey joined the newly founded University of Chicago (1894–1904) where he developed his belief in Rational Empiricism, becoming associated with the newly emerging Pragmatic philosophy. His time at the University of Chicago resulted in four essays collectively entitled Thought and its Subject-Matter, which was published with collected works from his colleagues at Chicago under the collective title Studies in Logical Theory (1903). During that time Dewey also initiated the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, where he was able to actualize the pedagogical beliefs that provided material for his first major work on education, The School and Society (1899). Disagreements with the administration ultimately caused his resignation from the university, and soon thereafter he relocated near the East Coast. In 1899, Dewey was elected president of the American Psychological Association (A.P.A.). From 1904 until his retirement in 1930 he was professor of philosophy at Columbia University.[11] In 1905 he became president of the American Philosophical Association. He was a longtime member of the American Federation of Teachers.
Along with the historians Charles A. Beard and James Harvey Robinson, and the economist Thorstein Veblen, Dewey is one of the founders of The New School. Dewey's most significant writings were "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology" (1896), a critique of a standard psychological concept and the basis of all his further work; Democracy and Education (1916), his celebrated work on progressive education; Human Nature and Conduct (1922), a study of the function of habit in human behavior;[12] The Public and its Problems (1927), a defense of democracy written in response to Walter Lippmann's The Phantom Public (1925); Experience and Nature (1925), Dewey's most "metaphysical" statement; Impressions of Soviet Russia and the Revolutionary World (1929), a glowing travelogue from the nascent USSR;[13] Art as Experience (1934), Dewey's major work on aesthetics; A Common Faith (1934), a humanistic study of religion originally delivered as the Dwight H. Terry Lectureship at Yale; Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (1938), a statement of Dewey's unusual conception of logic; Freedom and Culture (1939), a political work examining the roots of fascism; and Knowing and the Known (1949), a book written in conjunction with Arthur F. Bentley that systematically outlines the concept of trans-action, which is central to his other works (see Transactionalism). While each of these works focuses on one particular philosophical theme, Dewey included his major themes in most of what he published. He published more than 700 articles in 140 journals, and approximately 40 books.
Reflecting his immense influence on 20th-century thought, Hilda Neatby wrote "Dewey has been to our age what Aristotle was to the later Middle Ages, not a philosopher, but the philosopher."[14]
Dewey married Alice Chipman in 1886 shortly after Chipman graduated with her PhB from the University of Michigan. The two had six children: Frederick Archibald Dewey, Evelyn Riggs Dewey, Morris (who died young), Gordon Chipman Dewey, Lucy Alice Chipman Dewey, and Jane Mary Dewey.[15][16] Alice Chipman died in 1927 at the age of 68; weakened by a case of malaria contracted during a trip to Turkey in 1924 and a heart attack during a trip to Mexico City in 1926, she died from cerebral thrombosis on July 13, 1927.[17] Dewey married Estelle Roberta Lowitz Grant, "a longtime friend and companion for several years before their marriage" on December 11, 1946.[18][19] At Roberta's behest, the couple adopted two siblings, Lewis (changed to John, Jr.) and Shirley.[20] John Dewey died of pneumonia on June 1, 1952 at his home in New York City after years of ill-health.[21][22] and was cremated the next day.[23]
The United States Postal Service honored Dewey with a Prominent Americans series 30¢ postage stamp in 1968.[24]
Visits to China and Japan
John Dewey and Hu Shih, circa 1938–1942.
In 1919, Dewey and his wife traveled to Japan on sabbatical leave. Though Dewey and his wife were well received by the people of Japan during this trip, Dewey was also critical of the nation's governing system and claimed that the nation's path towards democracy was "ambitious but weak in many respects in which her competitors are strong."[25] He also stated that "the real test has not yet come. But if the nominally democratic world should go back on the professions so profusely uttered during war days, the shock will be enormous, and bureaucracy and militarism might come back."[25]
During his trip to Japan, Dewey was invited by Peking University to visit China, probably at the behest of his former students, Hu Shih and Chiang Monlin. Dewey and his wife Alice arrived in Shanghai on April 30, 1919,[26] just days before student demonstrators took to the streets of Peking to protest the decision of the Allies in Paris to cede the German held territories in Shandong province to Japan. Their demonstrations on May Fourth excited and energized Dewey, and he ended up staying in China for two years, leaving in July 1921.[27]
In these two years, Dewey gave nearly 200 lectures to Chinese audiences and wrote nearly monthly articles for Americans in The New Republic and other magazines. Well aware of both Japanese expansionism into China and the attraction of Bolshevism to some Chinese, Dewey advocated that Americans support China's transformation and that Chinese base this transformation in education and social reforms, not revolution. Hundreds and sometimes thousands of people attended the lectures, which were interpreted by Hu Shih. For these audiences, Dewey represented "Mr. Democracy" and "Mr. Science," the two personifications which they thought of representing modern values and hailed him as "Second Confucius". Perhaps Dewey's biggest impact, however, was on the forces for progressive education in China, such as Hu Shih and Chiang Monlin, who had studied with him, and Tao Xingzhi, who had studied at Teachers College, Columbia University.[28]
Their letters from China and Japan describing their experiences to their family were published in 1920, edited by their daughter Evelyn.[29] During and after his visit his commentaries on China would be published in such periodicals as the New Republic, Asia, the China Review, and sometimes in newspapers like the Baltimore Sun. Though discussing Chinese philosophy but rarely, one article in 1922, "As the Chinese Think", discusses the teachings of Laozi and Confucius in an attempt to improve understanding of the Chinese in international business relations.[30]
Visit to Southern Africa
Dewey and his daughter Jane went to South Africa in July 1934, at the invitation of the World Conference of New Education Fellowship in Cape Town and Johannesburg, where he delivered several talks. The conference was opened by the South African Minister of Education Jan Hofmeyr, and Deputy Prime Minister Jan Smuts. Other speakers at the conference included Max Eiselen and Hendrik Verwoerd, who would later become prime minister of the Nationalist government that introduced Apartheid.[31] John and Jane's expenses were paid by the Carnegie Foundation. He also traveled to Durban, Pretoria and Victoria Falls in what was then Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and looked at schools, talked to pupils, and gave lectures to the administrators and teachers. In August 1934, Dewey accepted an honorary degree from the University of the Witwatersrand.[32]
Functional psychology
See also: History of psychology
At the University of Michigan, Dewey published his first two books, Psychology (1887), and Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding (1888), both of which expressed Dewey's early commitment to British neo-Hegelianism. In Psychology, Dewey attempted a synthesis between idealism and experimental science.[1]
While still professor of philosophy at Michigan, Dewey and his junior colleagues, James Hayden Tufts and George Herbert Mead, together with his student James Rowland Angell, all influenced strongly by the recent publication of William James' Principles of Psychology (1890), began to reformulate psychology, emphasizing the social environment on the activity of mind and behavior rather than the physiological psychology of Wilhelm Wundt and his followers.
By 1894, Dewey had joined Tufts, with whom he would later write Ethics (1908) at the recently founded University of Chicago and invited Mead and Angell to follow him, the four men forming the basis of the so-called "Chicago group" of psychology.
Their new style of psychology, later dubbed functional psychology, had a practical emphasis on action and application. In Dewey's article "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology" which appeared in Psychological Review in 1896, he reasons against the traditional stimulus-response understanding of the reflex arc in favor of a "circular" account in which what serves as "stimulus" and what as "response" depends on how one considers the situation, and defends the unitary nature of the sensory motor circuit. While he does not deny the existence of stimulus, sensation, and response, he disagreed that they were separate, juxtaposed events happening like links in a chain. He developed the idea that there is a coordination by which the stimulation is enriched by the results of previous experiences. The response is modulated by sensorial experience.
Dewey was elected president of the American Psychological Association in 1899.
In 1984, the American Psychological Association announced that Lillian Moller Gilbreth (1878–1972) had become the first psychologist to be commemorated on a United States postage stamp. However, psychologists Gary Brucato and John D. Hogan later made the case that this distinction actually belonged to John Dewey, who had been celebrated on an American stamp 17 years earlier. While some psychology historians consider Dewey more of a philosopher than a bona fide psychologist,[33] the authors noted that Dewey was a founding member of the A.P.A., served as the A.P.A.'s eighth president in 1899, and was the author of an 1896 article on the reflex arc which is now considered a basis of American functional psychology.[34]
Dewey also expressed interest in work in the psychology of visual perception performed by Dartmouth research professor Adelbert Ames Jr. He had great trouble with listening, however, because it is known Dewey could not distinguish musical pitches—in other words was tone deaf.[35]
Pragmatism, instrumentalism, consequentialism
Dewey sometimes referred to his philosophy as instrumentalism rather than pragmatism, and would have recognized the similarity of these two schools to the newer school named consequentialism. He defined with precise brevity the criterion of validity common to these three schools, which lack agreed-upon definitions:
But in the proper interpretation of "pragmatic," namely the function of consequences as necessary tests of the validity of propositions, provided these consequences are operationally instituted and are such as to resolve the specific problem evoking the operations, the text that follows is thoroughly pragmatic.[36]
His concern for precise definition led him to detailed analysis of careless word usage, reported in Knowing and the Known in 1949.
Epistemology
Main article: Knowing and the Known
The terminology problem in the fields of epistemology and logic is partially due, according to Dewey and Bentley,[37] to inefficient and imprecise use of words and concepts that reflect three historic levels of organization and presentation.[38] In the order of chronological appearance, these are:
• Self-Action: Prescientific concepts regarded humans, animals, and things as possessing powers of their own which initiated or caused their actions.
• Interaction: as described by Newton, where things, living and inorganic, are balanced against something in a system of interaction, for example, the third law of motion states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
• Transaction: where modern systems of descriptions and naming are employed to deal with multiple aspects and phases of action without any attribution to ultimate, final, or independent entities, essences, or realities.
A series of characterizations of Transactions indicate the wide range of considerations involved.[39]
Logic and method
Dewey sees paradox in contemporary logical theory. Proximate subject matter garners general agreement and advancement, while the ultimate subject matter of logic generates unremitting controversy. In other words, he challenges confident logicians to answer the question of the truth of logical operators. Do they function merely as abstractions (e.g., pure mathematics) or do they connect in some essential way with their objects, and therefore alter or bring them to light?[40]
Grave of Dewey and his wife in an alcove on the north side of the Ira Allen Chapel in Burlington, Vermont. The only grave on the University of Vermont campus
Logical positivism also figured in Dewey's thought. About the movement he wrote that it "eschews the use of 'propositions' and 'terms', substituting 'sentences' and 'words'." ("General Theory of Propositions", in Logic: The Theory of Inquiry) He welcomes this changing of referents "in as far as it fixes attention upon the symbolic structure and content of propositions." However, he registers a small complaint against the use of "sentence" and "words" in that without careful interpretation the act or process of transposition "narrows unduly the scope of symbols and language, since it is not customary to treat gestures and diagrams (maps, blueprints, etc.) as words or sentences." In other words, sentences and words, considered in isolation, do not disclose intent, which may be inferred or "adjudged only by means of context."[40]
Yet Dewey was not entirely opposed to modern logical trends. Concerning traditional logic, he states:
Aristotelian logic, which still passes current nominally, is a logic based upon the idea that qualitative objects are existential in the fullest sense. To retain logical principles based on this conception along with the acceptance of theories of existence and knowledge based on an opposite conception is not, to say the least, conductive to clearness—a consideration that has a good deal to do with existing dualism between traditional and the newer relational logics.
Louis Menand argues in The Metaphysical Club that Jane Addams had been critical of Dewey's emphasis on antagonism in the context of a discussion of the Pullman strike of 1894. In a later letter to his wife, Dewey confessed that Addams' argument was:
... the most magnificent exhibition of intellectual & moral faith I ever saw. She converted me internally, but not really, I fear. ... When you think that Miss Addams does not think this as a philosophy, but believes it in all her senses & muscles—Great God ... I guess I'll have to give it [all] up & start over again.
He went on to add:
I can see that I have always been interpreting dialectic wrong end up, the unity as the reconciliation of opposites, instead of the opposites as the unity in its growth, and thus translated the physical tension into a moral thing ... I don't know as I give the reality of this at all, ... it seems so natural & commonplace now, but I never had anything take hold of me so.[41]
In a letter to Addams, clearly influenced by his conversation with her, Dewey wrote:
Not only is actual antagonizing bad, but the assumption that there is or may be antagonism is bad—in fact, the real first antagonism always comes back to the assumption.
Aesthetics
Main article: Art as Experience
Art as Experience (1934) is Dewey's major writing on aesthetics.
It is, in accordance with his place in the Pragmatist tradition that emphasizes community, a study of the individual art object as embedded in (and inextricable from) the experiences of a local culture. In the original illustrated edition, Dewey drew on the modern art and world cultures collection assembled by Albert C. Barnes at the Barnes Foundation, whose own ideas on the application of art to one's way of life was influenced by Dewey's writing. Barnes was particularly influenced by "Democracy and Education" (1916) and then attended Dewey's seminar on political philosophy at Columbia University in the fall semester of 1918
On philanthropy, women and democracy
Dewey founded the University of Chicago laboratory school, supported educational organizations, and supported settlement houses especially Jane Addams' Hull House.[42]
Through his work at the Hull House serving on its first board of trustees, Dewey was not only an activist for the cause but also a partner working to serve the large immigrant community of Chicago and women's suffrage. Dewey experienced the lack of children's education while contributing in the classroom at the Hull House and the lack of education and skills of immigrant women.[43] Stengel argues:
Addams is unquestionably a maker of democratic community and pragmatic education; Dewey is just as unquestionably a reflector. Through her work at Hull House, Addams discerned the shape of democracy as a mode of associated living and uncovered the outlines of an experimental approach to knowledge and understanding; Dewey analyzed and classified the social, psychological and educational processes Addams lived.[42]
His leading views on democracy included:
First, Dewey believed that democracy is an ethical ideal rather than merely a political arrangement. Second, he considered participation, not representation, the essence of democracy. Third, he insisted on the harmony between democracy and the scientific method: ever-expanding and self-critical communities of inquiry, operating on pragmatic principles and constantly revising their beliefs in light of new evidence, provided Dewey with a model for democratic decision making ... Finally, Dewey called for extending democracy, conceived as an ethical project, from politics to industry and society.[44]
This helped to shape his understanding of human action and the unity of human experience.
Dewey believed that a woman's place in society was determined by her environment and not just her biology. On women he says, "You think too much of women in terms of sex. Think of them as human individuals for a while, dropping out the sex qualification, and you won't be so sure of some of your generalizations about what they should and shouldn't do".[43] John Dewey's support helped to increase the support and popularity of Jane Addams' Hull House and other settlement houses as well. With growing support, involvement of the community grew as well as the support for the women's suffrage movement.
As commonly argued by Dewey's greatest critics, he was not able to come up with strategies in order to fulfill his ideas that would lead to a successful democracy, educational system, and a successful women's suffrage movement. While knowing that traditional beliefs, customs, and practices needed to be examined in order to find out what worked and what needed improved upon, it was never done in a systematic way.[43] "Dewey became increasingly aware of the obstacles presented by entrenched power and alert to the intricacy of the problems facing modern cultures".[44] With the complex of society at the time, Dewey was criticized for his lack of effort in fixing the problems.
With respect to technological developments in a democracy:
Persons do not become a society by living in physical proximity any more than a man ceases to be socially influenced by being so many feet or miles removed from others.
His work on democracy influenced B.R. Ambedkar, one of his students, who later became one of the founding fathers of independent India.[45][46][47][48]
On education and teacher education
Main article: Democracy and Education
Dewey's educational theories were presented in My Pedagogic Creed (1897), The School and Society (1900), The Child and the Curriculum (1902), Democracy and Education (1916), Schools of To-morrow (c1915) with Evelyn Dewey, and Experience and Education (1938). Several themes recur throughout these writings. Dewey continually argues that education and learning are social and interactive processes, and thus the school itself is a social institution through which social reform can and should take place. In addition, he believed that students thrive in an environment where they are allowed to experience and interact with the curriculum, and all students should have the opportunity to take part in their own learning.
The ideas of democracy and social reform are continually discussed in Dewey's writings on education. Dewey makes a strong case for the importance of education not only as a place to gain content knowledge, but also as a place to learn how to live. In his eyes, the purpose of education should not revolve around the acquisition of a pre-determined set of skills, but rather the realization of one's full potential and the ability to use those skills for the greater good. He notes that "to prepare him for the future life means to give him command of himself; it means so to train him that he will have the full and ready use of all his capacities" (My Pedagogic Creed, Dewey, 1897). In addition to helping students realize their full potential, Dewey goes on to acknowledge that education and schooling are instrumental in creating social change and reform. He notes that "education is a regulation of the process of coming to share in the social consciousness; and that the adjustment of individual activity on the basis of this social consciousness is the only sure method of social reconstruction".
In addition to his ideas regarding what education is and what effect it should have on society, Dewey also had specific notions regarding how education should take place within the classroom. In The Child and the Curriculum (1902), Dewey discusses two major conflicting schools of thought regarding educational pedagogy. The first is centered on the curriculum and focuses almost solely on the subject matter to be taught. Dewey argues that the major flaw in this methodology is the inactivity of the student; within this particular framework, "the child is simply the immature being who is to be matured; he is the superficial being who is to be deepened" (1902, p. 13).[49] He argues that in order for education to be most effective, content must be presented in a way that allows the student to relate the information to prior experiences, thus deepening the connection with this new knowledge.
At the same time, Dewey was alarmed by many of the "child-centered" excesses of educational-school pedagogues who claimed to be his followers, and he argued that too much reliance on the child could be equally detrimental to the learning process. In this second school of thought, "we must take our stand with the child and our departure from him. It is he and not the subject-matter which determines both quality and quantity of learning" (Dewey, 1902, pp. 13–14). According to Dewey, the potential flaw in this line of thinking is that it minimizes the importance of the content as well as the role of the teacher.
In order to rectify this dilemma, Dewey advocated for an educational structure that strikes a balance between delivering knowledge while also taking into account the interests and experiences of the student. He notes that "the child and the curriculum are simply two limits which define a single process. Just as two points define a straight line, so the present standpoint of the child and the facts and truths of studies define instruction" (Dewey, 1902, p. 16). It is through this reasoning that Dewey became one of the most famous proponents of hands-on learning or experiential education, which is related to, but not synonymous with experiential learning. He argued that "if knowledge comes from the impressions made upon us by natural objects, it is impossible to procure knowledge without the use of objects which impress the mind" (Dewey, 1916/2009, pp. 217–18).[50] Dewey's ideas went on to influence many other influential experiential models and advocates. Problem-Based Learning (PBL), for example, a method used widely in education today, incorporates Dewey's ideas pertaining to learning through active inquiry.[51]
Dewey not only re-imagined the way that the learning process should take place, but also the role that the teacher should play within that process. Throughout the history of American schooling, education's purpose has been to train students for work by providing the student with a limited set of skills and information to do a particular job. The works of John Dewey provide the most prolific examples of how this limited vocational view of education has been applied to both the K–12 public education system and to the teacher training schools who attempted to quickly produce proficient and practical teachers with a limited set of instructional and discipline-specific skills needed to meet the needs of the employer and demands of the workforce. In The School and Society (Dewey, 1899) and Democracy of Education (Dewey, 1916), Dewey claims that rather than preparing citizens for ethical participation in society, schools cultivate passive pupils via insistence upon mastery of facts and disciplining of bodies. Rather than preparing students to be reflective, autonomous and ethical beings capable of arriving at social truths through critical and intersubjective discourse, schools prepare students for docile compliance with authoritarian work and political structures, discourage the pursuit of individual and communal inquiry, and perceive higher learning as a monopoly of the institution of education (Dewey, 1899; 1916).
For Dewey and his philosophical followers, education stifles individual autonomy when learners are taught that knowledge is transmitted in one direction, from the expert to the learner. Dewey not only re-imagined the way that the learning process should take place, but also the role that the teacher should play within that process. For Dewey, "The thing needful is improvement of education, not simply by turning out teachers who can do better the things that are not necessary to do, but rather by changing the conception of what constitutes education" (Dewey, 1904, p. 18). Dewey's qualifications for teaching—a natural love for working with young children, a natural propensity to inquire about the subjects, methods and other social issues related to the profession, and a desire to share this acquired knowledge with others—are not a set of outwardly displayed mechanical skills. Rather, they may be viewed as internalized principles or habits which "work automatically, unconsciously" (Dewey, 1904, p. 15). Turning to Dewey's essays and public addresses regarding the teaching profession, followed by his analysis of the teacher as a person and a professional, as well as his beliefs regarding the responsibilities of teacher education programs to cultivate the attributes addressed, teacher educators can begin to reimagine the successful classroom teacher Dewey envisioned.
Professionalization of teaching as a social service
For many, education's purpose is to train students for work by providing the student with a limited set of skills and information to do a particular job. As Dewey notes, this limited vocational view is also applied to teacher training schools who attempt to quickly produce proficient and practical teachers with a limited set of instructional and discipline skills needed to meet the needs of the employer and demands of the workforce (Dewey, 1904). For Dewey, the school and the classroom teacher, as a workforce and provider of a social service, have a unique responsibility to produce psychological and social goods that will lead to both present and future social progress. As Dewey notes, "The business of the teacher is to produce a higher standard of intelligence in the community, and the object of the public school system is to make as large as possible the number of those who possess this intelligence. Skill, ability to act wisely and effectively in a great variety of occupations and situations, is a sign and a criterion of the degree of civilization that a society has reached. It is the business of teachers to help in producing the many kinds of skill needed in contemporary life. If teachers are up to their work, they also aid in the production of character."(Dewey, TAP, 2010, pp. 241–42).
According to Dewey, the emphasis is placed on producing these attributes in children for use in their contemporary life because it is "impossible to foretell definitely just what civilization will be twenty years from now" (Dewey, MPC, 2010, p. 25). However, although Dewey is steadfast in his beliefs that education serves an immediate purpose (Dewey, DRT, 2010; Dewey, MPC, 2010; Dewey, TTP, 2010), he is not ignorant of the impact imparting these qualities of intelligence, skill, and character on young children in their present life will have on the future society. While addressing the state of educative and economic affairs during a 1935 radio broadcast, Dewey linked the ensuing economic depression to a "lack of sufficient production of intelligence, skill, and character" (Dewey, TAP, 2010, p. 242) of the nation's workforce. As Dewey notes, there is a lack of these goods in the present society and teachers have a responsibility to create them in their students, who, we can assume, will grow into the adults who will ultimately go on to participate in whatever industrial or economical civilization awaits them. According to Dewey, the profession of the classroom teacher is to produce the intelligence, skill, and character within each student so that the democratic community is composed of citizens who can think, do and act intelligently and morally.