Dear Mr.

John Dewey,

I am writing this letter to you, posthumously of course, to inform you of the many
changes, successes, and challenges that I have personally seen in the education
community in the area of curriculum development and implementation. When I thought of
who most deserved to receive this letter, I instantly thought of you and your many writings
on education. These profound writings have had a lasting impact on educational practice
throughout the world. Your writings have also served as a real inspiration and driving force
behind what I think curriculum could become. I am currently taking a course titled;
Curriculum Development in which we discussed and worked with many of the issues that
you brought up and looked at the different parts to creating a curriculum. Throughout the
time the course has been going I have gained some powerful insights into the true nature
of curriculum planning and have had several a-ha moments that have lead me to write
this letter.

First off, I want to applaud you for your forward thinking and revelations about the
nature of what and how students should be taught. And more importantly about what the
educational experience should be, In your book, Education and Experience (1938) you
explain that education is about planning, Like any plan, it must be framed with reference
to what is to be done and how it is to be done.The more definitely and sincerely it is held
that education is a development with, by, and for experience, the more important it is that
there shall be clear expectations of what experience is. (Dewey, 1938 p. 197) I cannot tell
you how much this specific little quote brought out for me in terms of carefully planning the
experience. While I always knew this was a part of what I was doing when I planned out
things I never fully appreciated how I could take that planning to various levels to truly craft
the ultimate learning experiences that taught throughout the curriculum could build on

each other. You go onto say, Unless experience is so conceived that the result is a plan
for deciding upon subject-matter, upon methods of instruction and discipline, and upon
material equipment and social organization of the school, it is wholly in the air. It is reduced
to a form of words which may be emotionally stirring but for which any other set of words
might equally well be substituted unless they indicate operations to be initiated and
executed. (Dewey, 1938 p. 198) What I took from the rest of this section was that all of the
planning in the world is not going to get to the essence of the experience you are trying to
deliver does not take all areas into account. For those of us that have been a part of the
curriculum process it is easy to see the wisdom and truth in this statement.

I think that if you would have had the chance to meet and discuss education with
Elliot Eisner there would have been some magical findings and revelations. Eisner has one
of those sharp witted and poignant writing styles and many of his educational ideals match
your own. He writes, The major point I have been trying to make thus far is that schools
have consequences not only by virtue of what they do teach, but also by virtue of what
they neglect to teach. What students cannot consider, what they dont know, processes
they are unable to use, have consequences for the kinds of lives they lead. (Eisner, 2002,
p. 105) Eisner major point here is that schools all teach things that are not necessarily in
the curriculum. These things are all part of what he calls Null Curriculum, that is the
things that are not written down that every student learns. To me this is all part of the
experience and planning that I previously wrote about. If curriculum writers take their time
and are implicit in trying to incorporate all the ideas that the community, the students and
the school want.

Keeping on this idea, as it is to me at the root of what good curriculum writing is all
about, I found this quote you made quite interesting. Abandon the notion of subject-

matter (objectives) as something fixed and ready-made in itself, outside the childs
experience; See the childs experience and subject-matter as something fluent, embryonic,
vital; and teaching as continuous reconstruction, moving from the childs present
experience into the subject matter and vice versa. (Dewey, 1902, p. 109) I am please to
tell you that this is exactly how I am supposed to teach; within the guidelines of the Middle
Years International Baccalaureate Program. We are asked to pick major concepts, but we
are free to change and mold and see the students we are teaching as bundles of
experiences. All of those pasts in one room makes it easier to follow this design. I think
that you would be somewhat proud of how the IB makes its curriculum if you were to see it
now. We are even highly encouraged to take into consideration not only the global world,
but we are also encouraged to incorporate the local community, backgrounds and cultures
of all kinds into our curricular planning. In your time you rationalized. A society is a
number of people held together because they are working along common lines, in a
common spirit, and with reference to common aims. (Dewey, 1912, p. 11) To me this is a
common definition that indicates school that I have worked in around the world. And I think
that we have definitely overcome this statement. The radical reason that the present
school cannot organize itself as a natural social unit is because just this element of
common and productive activity is absent. (Dewey, 1912, p. 12) I would love to see what
you think of things like, Makers Spaces, design labs, community service, and service
learning projects. All of these things provide a connectedness to the real world as well as
opportunities for exactly what Dewey calls common and productive and really help the
students learn empathy for the world if they are set up correctly.

I will say that more than ever there are examples if teachers around the world doing
things that are truly in spiring with kids. These things are imaginative and innovative and
very meaningful in terms of opening the doors of learning and thinking as well as having

connections to the real world. One of the most important things that I read from you this
semester was this, The imagination if the medium in which the child lives. (Dewey, 1902,
p. 55) I teach technology and production design, to this quote means everything to me and
I know that for others it does as well. If we can capture the students imagination as a
teacher there is nothing that we cannot accomplish together on the journey of education.
You, along with the other authors I have read have helped me to renew my passion for
education and for teaching in ways that I have not thought about in years.

Again, I want to thank you and hope that you have enjoyed this letter. I have really
enjoyed getting to know about you deals and have also enjoyed trying to put myself in your
shoes, while still trying to keep myself in my own time.

Sincerely,
John Lancett

References
Dewey, J. (1938/2013) Education And Experience. [Kindle DX Version]. Retrieved from
Amazon.com
Dewey, J. (1902/2001)The Child and the Curriculum. New York, NY: Macmillan.
Dewey J. (1915) School and Society. University of Chicago Press
Eisner, E. (2002). The three curricula that all schools teach. In The educational
imagination: On the design and evaluation of school programs (3rd ed.) Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.