John Dewey's Experience And Education

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John Dewey was one of the most influential American philosopher born in Vermont in 1859. He graduated from the University of Vermont and eventually got his Ph.D. and went on to teaching at other universities. In his book Experience and Education he talks about traditional education, the theory of experience, criteria of experience, social control, the nature of freedom, the meaning of purpose, progressive organization, and at the end he raps it up with the means and goals of education. Dewey was a well-known philosopher and his ideas travel all around during the early 20th century. He had two main principles; the principle of continuity and the principle of interaction that led to what he believed was the proper way to educated students.
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He begins with saying” experience does not mean that all experiences are genuinely or equally educative” (Dewey 25) I think it was very smart of him to start off by saying this because it is true. Not every experience one has is going to be a good one. He says that it depends on quality of the experience. When he talks about this he begins to bring up his first principle of continuity. This principle is basically stating that in education one must teach by using the past and future in order to teach the present. I also agree with him on this because of the fact that without the past there isn’t anything that we would be teaching, Teachers teach the past in order to prevent it from happening but if the past is not taught then we will continue to make the same …show more content…

He gives an example of how without rules there is no game. The game cannot go anywhere is there is not any rules to follow. In his principle of interaction he says that it is based on inner and outer experiences. Outer experiences having to do with family, the environment, the curriculum, etc. While, inner experiences being with more personally things such as ones personality. “The planning must be flexible enough to permit free play for individuality of experience and yet firm enough to give direction towards continuous development of power” (Dewey58). Dewey suggest not only students having experiences that have to do with them personally but also with experiences that they deal with inside of other atmospheres. Social control as Dewey mentions in a traditional classroom it would be keeping order and having strict disciple, while in a nontraditional classroom it is more about being able to think on your

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