Contributions of John Dewey Writing Assignment Paper

Contributions of John Dewey
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Contributions of John Dewey
Born in 1859, the great philosopher John Dewey is known to have contributed to the history of America. Not only did he influence the US education system, but the social reforms and psychology as well. He believed in the hands-on, practical application of all theories and beliefs, a fact that made him known as the founder of pragmatism. Dewey also developed functional psychology and in the US education progressive movement, he served as the leading representative. His ideas were focused on changing the world views through practical means particularly scientific analysis instead of just basing on theory. For these reasons, Dewey contributed in a big way to the US schooling and education all over the world. In order to understand his contributions to education, it is better to have an understanding of Dewey`s definition of the purpose of education. The purpose therefore, is to equip the young individuals with the tools necessary to become informed members of society. And this purpose is applicable universally regardless of where the process of education is taking place.
Experience is one concept that Dewey emphasized on in his works. According to him, the things we engage in make up this experience and as these things are done on a continuous basis, then learning takes place. When learning has been achieved through getting things done then that is what makes up education (Goldblatt 2006). This experience as noted has to occur naturally within the human beings and not outside. It is for this reason that he was against the public schools offering specialized training at an early stage as this denied the children a chance to engage in something they had an interest in (Tozer, Violas, & Senese 2002). According to him education failed to meet its purpose if external interests were used to define the interests of the learners. He also advocated for the prioritizing of any activities that made the child to be energetically involved.
On his part Dewey was a prolific writer who wrote for the public and used the opportunity to address issues of concern. As a leader of the progressive movement, he is recognized for writing for the pubic magazine and other opinion issues on matters like the problems that women were going through. For instance The New Republic was one such magazine he contributed to. Apart from writing for the magazines he also wrote a number of books which tackled wide areas of politics, arts and sciences and he always tried to put all his ideas into action through adopting a practical approach in everything. Basing on this, Dewey believed that all problems could be solved by a combination of human intelligence and applying a practical approach to issues. His ideas in general were meant to democratize education.
Dewey advocated for democratic learning which basically was based on the idea of “learning by doing”. He supported the idea of active learning and viewed the process of schooling as restricting as it did not offer enough time for active participation. In regard to this, emphasis was placed on the importance of using experience as a learning method rather than only depending on memorized facts and theories. To support this belief, Dewey established schools in Chicago together with his wife where processes such as cooking breakfast was taught to children as a way of learning the basics of chemistry, biology and physics. The school served as a laboratory for testing out all the learned theories. This approach led to his idea of schooling to be referred to as progressive education. The main idea behind applying the practical scientific experimental approach was to enable intellectual development by breeding learners who were both critical and creative thinkers and who applied the knowledge to solve real life problems. For example by using the proportions in cooking a student could learn math, having an experience of how people lived could enable the learning of history, and through observation of natural phenomena like the climate and the behavior of plants and animals, geography could be learnt. The aim in all this was to teach students how to learn from natural processes using real-life challenges. In relation to “learning from life itself”, Dewey recognized the importance of art and its role in helping develop experience. According to this, as one gets to learn about and interact with tools, an experience is developed from the process that changes the life of the person involved. Through art one can have a feel of how things can be molded in such a way that is fulfilling to us.
Dewey believed in public education as the means through which democracy would succeed. In collaboration with other like-minded individuals in the progressive movement, he advocated for education to be made compulsory for all people particularly children regardless of whether their parents supported the idea or n...