The Philippine Educational System has undergone various modifications brought by

settlers who colonized our country. Its long years of exposure and contact with the
Spaniards, Americans, and Japanese have created a spectrum of educational variations
and lines of emphasis (de Guzman, 2003). Remarkably, the Philippines’ educational
system, both former and current, is influenced greatly by Dr. John Dewey’s
philosophical perspective.

Dewey’s influence on Philippine education started to get sharply visible when it became
independent (Papong, 2014). Student body organizations or councils were established
not only in an institutional level but as a national union. Dewey emphasizes the
importance of students’ voice in the educative process. The presence and engagement
of students in learning is deemed important.

Presently, the K-12 Basic Education Program substantiates a reform in the country’s
educational system. This program reflects Dewey’s pragmatist and cognitive
constructivist ideas. Inquiry-based learning and spiral approach are incorporated to the
present curriculum.
In a fast-pacing and ever-growing society, the educational system in the Philippines
should be kept up-to-date. Students must not only be educated in a factual or conceptual
level but the instruction must also tackle the social, political and economic aspect of the
individual’s life. In this way, education is more practical and functional (Damian, n.d.).
Students will be able to clearly associate learning to real world, thus, taking in charge
and being responsible of their own learning.

The following are some posits under the Deweyan Principle that are utilized in the
present curriculum in the Philippines:

“The nature of the child is made the center of educative process.”

I firmly believe, with great affirmation, that the main reason a school is established is
because of the learner more than anything else. Rousseau stresses that the child should
be respected, as he is with all his abilities, and drawbacks, that in educating him these
should be given due consideration and that all children cannot therefore be treated alike.
Setting aside the facilities, resources, strategies and curriculum, the focus should be to
the child. Therefore, the students’ interest and needs should be taken into consideration.
The purpose of education will not be served if the learner themselves does not involve
themselves to the process.

“The theory of self activity is made the center or basis of learning.”

Hands-on activities and experiences cultivate learning. It gives students first-hand
experiences and lifelong learning. Rousseau says,” Teach by doing whenever you can,
and only for fall back upon words when doing is out of question. The child should take
part in various activities and learn in natural way. It will help him in satisfaction of
creative activity.” Heurism is demonstrated in today’s educational system, as the
curriculum integrates inquiry-based learning and vocational trainings. Students are
given opportunity to make experiments with apparatus that they personally made.

“Activity program is the core of the curriculum.”

Knowledge acquired through direct experience is rather permanent. field trip, report,
group activity, games, observation, experiments, cultural activities, on–the-job training,
programs and project all contributes to lifelong learning. This is highly encouraged right
now in schools not as supplement to the learning experience but as the main methods
to teaching.

Both Damian and Papong made a direct but comprehensive synthesis of the impacts of
Dewey’s Educational thoughts on the Philippines Educational System. Damian
elaborates in his paper the aims of Education under the Philippines New Society. He
emphasizes how the Philippines and the Department of Education work in reorganizing
the system to meet the growing needs of the society. For him, to create a better nation,
it should prepare the young people with the best education even in the complexity of
time, economic aspects, advanced technology, environment, social forms and political
change. Papong describes how Dewey’s principles influences the Philippine
Educational system, both past and present. He hopes that with the acquisition of the K-
12 Program and Deweyan principle, a better and more progressive future for Philippine
Education will be attained.

According to the provisions of the Constitution of the Philippines (1935), all schools
shall “aim to develop moral character, personal discipline, civic conscience, vocational
efficiency and to teach the duties of citizenship” These can all be attained through
practicing pragmatism, experimentalism and cognitive constructivist ideas.

References:
Papong. (2014). Bulgarian Journal of Science and Education Policy (BJSEP). The
Influence of John Dewey’s Educational Thought on Philippine Education.

Damian (n.d.). The importance of Dr. John Dewey’s Educational Philosophy Applied
in Philippine Setting.

Darji. (2012). Educational Philosophy of Jean Jacques Rousseau. Retrieved

from http://cdwaymade.blogspot.tw/2012/09/educational-philosophy-of-jean-
jacques.html
Monteiro. (n.d.). Rousseau’s Concept of Education. Retrieved
from http://snphilosophers2005.tripod.com/ternan.pdf
De Guzman. (2003). Asia Pacific Education Review. The Dynamics of Educational
Reforms in the Philippine Basic and Higher Education Sectors. Retrieved
from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ776349.pdf
Photo Source: http://ayala.weboui.com

https://mitchellium.wordpress.com/2017/07/06/deweys-influence-to-philippine-educational-system/

John Dewey on Education: Theory &

Philosophy
Chapter 2 / Lesson 13 Transcript
Instructor: Theresa Spanella
Theresa has taught college Writing for 15 years and is two classes from completing a doctorate in
Education
John Dewey, lauded as the 'Modern Father of Experiential Education,' was a forward educational
philosopher whose ideas still influence education today. His approach of learning by doing is
practiced in classrooms around the world and has changed the way educators present knowledge
and students learn.

John Dewey and Experiential Education

John Dewey was born in Vermont in 1859. He was an American philosopher, psychologist and
educational reformer who has long been considered one of the founders of a theory he referred to
as instrumentalism, also called pragmatism. Instrumentalists believed that in order to be
considered correct a theory must be successfully applied. In other words, instrumentalism is a belief
that practice and theory are linked. Dewey applied his pragmatic beliefs to education, and his ideas
forever changed the landscape of education. His impact even earned him the name 'The Modern
Father of Experiential Education.'

Dewey's Theory of Education

Dewey's thoughts on education, originally published in his 1938 work Experience and
Education, analyzed both traditional and progressive education. Traditional education's focus was
more on curriculum and heritage, defining a student's learning path for them; a progressive
education focused on the student's interest rather than that of the instructor or subject. In Dewey's
opinion, neither of these schools of thought were sufficient. Dewey believed that traditional education
was too strict and progressive education too spontaneous. He believed that traditional education left
little regard for the learner's interests and progressive education was too individualized.
Not being fully pleased with either philosophy, Dewey proposed a new educational theory, which
highlighted the role experience plays in education. According to Dewey, powerful educational
experiences are a result of two fundamental principles: continuity and interaction.
Continuity refers to how experiences, both past and present, influence the future while interaction
refers to how one's current situation influences their experiences. Dewey combined these two
principles, stating that one's present experiences are a direct result of how their previous
experiences interact with and influence their present situation. Simply put, Dewey stated that human
experiences- past, present, and future- influence the capacity to learn. He once said that:
'Education is a social process. Education is growth. Education is, not a preparation for life; education
is life itself.'

Dewey's Progressive Outlook

Dewey believed that traditional education, in its rigid requirements of standards and conduct,
encourages learners to be docile and obedient, producing an environment where learners are
encouraged to listen and learn but not necessarily to think for themselves. He valued the opportunity
progressive education provides learners to think and grow but believed that progressivism forced
younger generations to enact adult standards, producing an environment where learners would be
encouraged to think on their own without understanding the reasoning behind their thinking.
Dewey rejected both theories and, instead, proposed that educators recognize the relationship
between experience and education. He wrote, 'There is an intimate and necessary relation between
the processes of actual experience and education.' Recognizing that not all experiences were
educational, Dewey challenged educators to begin providing learners with experiences that resulted
in growth and learning, believing that these experiences would someday result in growth and
creativity in learners' future experiences. In other words, a good experience now would impact future
decisions and experiences. This is what Dewey called the continuity of experience.

The Concept of Experiential Education

Dewey argued that education should focus on the quality of the experience more than it focused on
the information being presented. In order to be considered a quality experience, he said that the
experience must have continuity with their past and future experiences and interaction between the
student's individual perceptions and a lesson environment. Continuity would propel learners to
continue learning while interaction would meet the learner's needs.

His solution was experiential education, an education philosophy based on the idea that learning
occurs through experience and requires hands-on activities that directly relate to the learner's life. In
experiential education, learning occurs through actually doing something and then reflecting on- and
learning from- the process. It combines active learning with concrete experience and reflection.
Service learning, adventure learning and workplace internships are all examples of experiential
education.
https://study.com/academy/lesson/john-dewey-on-education-theory-philosophy-quiz.html
John Dewey | Philosophy and Education
1858-1952

More eyes are now fixed upon the University Elementary School at Chicago than
upon any other elementary school in the country and probably in the world

Dr. A. B. Hinsdale, 1900

National Council of Education

By the turn of the century, John Dewey's experiment in education had captured the
attention of teachers at every level of the teaching system. Its radically new teaching
practices represented a turning point, not only for formal education but also for larger
views of childhood learning.

Dewey came to the University of Chicago at the urging of James Hayden Tufts, a
colleague at the University of Michigan who joined the Chicago faculty in 1892.
Appointed to head the Department of Philosophy, Dewey's experimentalism blended
well with the views of George Herbert Mead and Tufts. In addition to fulfilling his
departmental obligations and administering the School of Education, Dewey
published several books and articles on education and philosophy. The School and
Society (1899) became a classic among progressive educators.

Trained as a philosopher at Johns Hopkins, Dewey was intrigued by the relationship

between the individual and society. Firmly committed to a democratic outlook, he
considered the school a laboratory to test his notion that education could integrate
learning with experience. The University Elementary School or Laboratory School
established by Dewey grew quickly. Parents were attracted by a curriculum that
emphasized the child instead of the subject matter, where the learning process was at
least as important as what was learned, and where curiosity was encouraged.

Dewey's success could not overcome his disagreements with administrators and other
educators. His relationship with William Rainey Harper deteriorated as Harper's plans
to consolidate the Elementary School with Colonel Francis Parker's Chicago Institute
under the control of the University infringed on Dewey's freedom of action. Dewey
assumed that he would be given control of the curriculum and the merged school
administration, leaving the funding problems in the hands of the University. This was
clearly not Harper's view, and when controversy arose over the appointment of Alice
Dewey as principal of the University Elementary School, John and Alice Dewey
resigned and left for Columbia University.

Dewey's interest in education shifted after leaving Chicago and he never again
organized a school. For the next half century he concentrated upon philosophical
issues, publishing extensively and with great influence upon political, aesthetic,
ethical, and epistemological questions. He clung to his liberal humanism, eloquently
defending democratic ideals during periods when world and national events seemed to
undermine the basis for his beliefs.

https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/projects/centcat/fac/facch08_01.html

Democracy and education by John Dewey is the greatest work of the Philosophy of
Education. Indeed, Dewey is the initiator of the “hands-on learning”, opposed to a
“lecturing” approach. Dewey created a laboratory school away from the usual
authority where the teacher is a guide, and where the student learns by doing. Dewey
wants to reconcile spirit and action, work and leisure, interest and effort. He believes
that children should act rather than listen. For these reasons, He is one of the leading
educators of new education movement.

Education and Democracy

Dewey does not hesitate to assert that “the formation of a certain character is the only
true foundation of moral conduct” or to identify the “moral conduct” in democratic
practice. The individual is realized, according to Dewey, using his own talents to help
welfare of the community as a result, the crucial function of education in a democratic
society is to help the child develop the “character” – the sum of habits and virtues –
which will be fully realized in this way. All in all, he believes, American schools fail
in this task. They employ methods for most oriented strongly “individualist”, which
require all students from one class to read same time the books and recite the same
lessons. Under these conditions, the social impulses of the child atrophy, and the
master can not take advantage of the innate desire of every child “to give, to do is to
say, to serve”. The spirit Community is replaced by “motivations and highly
individualistic norms” fear, emulation, rivalry, judgments of superiority and
inferiority and, as such, “most weak lose their sense of their abilities and accept an
inferior position and persistent sustainable “while” the strong are tempted to boast of
being the strongest “. For the school to cultivate in children the meaning and develop
their social democratic spirit, we should have, said Dewey, whether organized as a
community cooperative. If we want that education prepares for democracy, schools
must become “a institution that is, temporarily, a place of life for the child, the child is
a member of the society and is aware of this membership and agrees to contribute “.

Dewey, education and the formation of the democratic

sense
This objective is not an easy task: indeed, such a provision of the mind is not
something teachers may require students they need to create a social environment to
encourage children to assume the responsibilities of a spontaneous moral conduct
democratic. But this moral life, Dewey notes, “exists only where the individual has its
own appreciation of the goals he seeks and works with interest and dedication to their
realization “(Dewey, 1897a). Dewey understands it takes a lot to teachers and
therefore, recalling the late 1890s, their role and social importance, it falls back into
the Social Gospel that he had abandoned, when told the teacher that he is “the herald
of the true kingdom of God” (Dewey, 1897b)

Dewey’s educational theory is much less child-centered and more on teaching than is
often thought. Its conviction that the school teaches children the virtues of democratic
proceeds in the trust he has not so much in the “capacity of raw and spontaneous the
child “in the ability of teachers in their classrooms to create a cleanbring the child to
transform them into “social habits, the result of an intelligent understanding of their
responsibilities “(Dewey, 1897b). Dewey’s faith in the teacher is also reflected in his
belief, expressed in 1890s, that “education is the basic method of progress and reform
society “(Dewey, 1897b). And there is some logic in this profession of faith: in that
school plays a decisive role in shaping the personality of children of a given society, it
can, if designed for this purpose, so turning fundamental that society. The school is in
fact a kind of culture broth may affect the actual course of its evolution. In fact, if
teachers did a good job, any reform would almost BE superfluous: a democratic and
cooperative community emerge directly from the class. The trouble is that most
schools were not designed to transform society, but to reproduce. Dewey himself
acknowledges, “At any time, the system school was based on the dominant type of
organization of social life “(Dewey, 1896b). Beliefs that set out in its educational
credo about the school and teachers were therefore less than what was what could be.
So that the school becomes an agent of social reform rather than social reproduction,
it had to rebuild itself from top to bottom. This was the most ambitious plan that fed.

Dewey as a reformer of education: Changing schools

“School is the only form of social functioning in abstraction and in a controlled
environment to be directly experimental, and if philosophy must never become an
experimental science, the starting point is the construction of a school “(Dewey,
1896a). Dewey arrived in Chicago with a pretty good idea of the type a “laboratory
school” that he would establish himself. In 1894, he confided to his wife: I have in
mind, more and more present, the image of a school, a school where some real work
constructive will be the center and source of everything, from which the work is still
growing in two directions: first the social dimension of this constructive activity, on
the other hand, the contact. Nature providing the raw material. I see very well in
theory, how the business of carpentry set effort to build a model house, for example,
will be the center of a social formation, a hand, science, on the other, all as part of
physical training, practical and positive, of the eye and hand “(Dewey, 1894). The ball
was now in the court of the university authorities, to which Dewey had extolled the
merits of a school, keeping in contact with the theoretical work requirements practice,
would be the essential element of a department of education – “the nerve of the whole
system “- and it receives support from Harper himself very actively engaged in the
campaign for educational reform in Chicago (Dewey, 1896c). In January 1896, the
Laboratory School at the University of Chicago opened its doors.

Dewey’s democratic ethics.

Central to the program of the School Dewey figure what Dewey calls “occupation”,
that is to say, “a mode of activity on the part of the child, which reproduces a Working
exercised in social life is parallel ”

Because business practices constituting these “occupations” have implications that is,
on the one hand, the scientific study of materials and processes they put in game, and,
secondly, their role in society and culture, centering on a theme occupation provides
an opportunity not only training manual and a research history, but also work in
mathematics, geology, physics, biology, chemistry, visual arts, music and languages.
At the Laboratory School, Dewey observed, “The child comes to class to do things:
cooking, sewing, woodworking, and use tools for acts of simple construction, and it is
in context and in connection with that these acts are ordered studies: writing, reading,
arithmetic, etc. Expertise such as reading is acquired when the child reaches the stage
where recognizes the usefulness of this knowledge to solve problems facing him in
the activities that make up its “occupation”. According to Dewey, “If a child
understands the reason to acquire know-how, acquiring him is greatly facilitated.
Books and reading are considered strictly as a tool “.

When reading the descriptions and accounts of the Laboratory School, the difficult to
understand how some critics have seen as the champion of Dewey progressive
education “profit.” Dewey, however, stated explicitly the objectives of the curriculum,
also immediately visible in practice daily teacher with whom he worked. Dewey gives
much more than the price rigid traditionalists in accumulated knowledge of mankind,
and he understands that students his elementary school have access to the wealth of
science, history and arts. He wants as they learn to read, write and count, to think
scientifically and express themselves in a manner desired. With regard to the subjects
of study, the objectives educational Dewey are actually quite conventional methods
are only innovative and radical, but conventional or not, these objectives are explicitly
stated.

So important may have been his laboratory school as a testing ground for functional
psychology and pragmatism of Dewey, it was more like expression of ethics and
democratic theory of this great teacher. “The Social education function was the
rule. Dewey School was primarily an educational experience for democracy.

https://www.the-philosophy.com/dewey-education

4 Main Aims of Education as

Advocated by John Dewey
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This article throws light upon the four main aims of

education of education as advocated by John Dewey
Aim of Education # 1. Social Efficiency:
According to John Dewey, the development of social efficiency is one
of the aims of education.

To him, school is a social institution. The school should be organised

in such a way that the activities of the outer world are reflected.
ADVERTISEMENTS:

Education takes place with the participation of the individual in social

activities and relationships with his fellow human beings. Dewey holds
that education is a necessity for healthy living in the society. Education
bridges the gulf between the innate nature of the child and the social
needs and demands.

It gives him social consciousness. The school directs guides and

controls the inborn propensities of the child in socially desirable
channels. The teacher must know the original nature of the child as
well as the social demands. The teacher has to direct and guide the
child’s activities in socially desirable channels. The school is a social
environment — “simplified, purified, balanced and graded.”

Thus the school provides a special type of environment. The school as

a special environment will cultivate, within the child, the attitudes and
dispositions which are necessary for a continuous and progressive life
in a society. The teacher has to play a significant role in this regard. He
serves as the main directing force and organizer of the special
environment of the school.

Dewey formulated “social efficiency” as aim of education in view of the

changing tenor of society. This change has been brought by the
application of science to the means of production and distribution, by
the rise of great manufacturing centers and by the rapid growth of
means of communication. The school must take cognizance of these
changes to fit the child in this changed situation in an effective
manner.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

The school acts as an active instrument of social change and progress.

Through education, society can formulate its own purposes, organise
its means of attainment, and shape itself in the direction it wishes to
go. This is the essence of democratic social order.

Democratic society makes provision for participation of all its

members on equal terms. It secures flexible readjustment of
institutions through inter-action of different forms of cooperative life.

The school should include both the social and the individual goal.
Social institutions do not give to man. They create him. Individuality is
wrought out. Personality is achieved. Education is the means of social
continuity and development of individuality.

Education is growth as the child is an ever-growing and changing

personality. The place of individual in society depends upon native
aptitudes, not on wealth and social position. Social welfare depends
upon man finding and filling his place in life.

Aim of Education # 2. Education is Life:

ADVERTISEMENTS:

Dewey emphasises that education is not a preparation for life; it is life

itself. The child lives in the present. The future is meaningless to him.
Hence it is absurd to expect him to do things for some future
preparation. As the child lives in the present, the educative process
will be naturally based on the present needs and interests of the child.

The school is a miniature society facing problems similar to those

faced in life. Children should be trained to participate in social life
effectively. The basic purpose of the school is to train pupils in
cooperative living. Since the pupils are to live in a democratic society
they should help to organise one and live in it.

The child is to share the resources of a good society and to give back to
that society, thus helping the development of other members. By give-
and-take process the growth of the individual and the group is
achieved.
For, each member can develop more fully as an individual and then
has more to give back to the group. The pupils confronting social
problems shall create their own social order by solving the problems.
The school should, thus, identify itself with social and democratic life.

Aim of Education # 3. Education is Experience:

ADVERTISEMENTS:

Dewey favored an education by, of, and for, experience. Every new
experience is education. An old experience is replaced by a new
experience. The human race has gained experience in its struggle to
meet the needs of life. This ‘struggle for existence’ is a continuous
process.

A conscious effort has to be made to make men more competent to

take part in the activities and purposes of the race. This effort is
education. Education, Dewey said, helps “The process of the
reconstruction of experience, giving it a more socialised value through
the medium of increased individual efficiency.”

The democratic way of life gives opportunity for making this effort.
Education constantly reorganizes or reconstructs the human
experience. It preserves that much of the experience which is valuable
and re-weaves it in the light of present needs and demands.

This function of re-weaving and revitalising the social fabric or

heritage is performed through special agencies like the school. The
child, who is an ever-growing individual too, takes part in this function
of re-construction. The growing child selects and re-organises his
cultural heritage according to his own needs in a changing and new
world.

Aim of Education # 4. Education should Combine Theory

and Practice:
ADVERTISEMENTS:
The aim of education, according to Dewey, should be to create a
balance between theoretical and practical activities. He has stressed
equal importance to both action and thought. These two should go
hand-in-hand. Practical side is no doubt, very important but the
theoretical side, at the same time, should not be ignored.

Abstract ideas should have concrete applications. Similarly, practical

applications must have theoretical basis.

Theory and practice can be combined in the school through

occupations. By occupations, Dewey meant various activities like
wood-work, cookery etc. which we have in social life. Such occupations
have necessary balance of theory and practice.

Active self-expression takes place through the hands, eyes,

observation, planning and reflection. These give a new orientation to
the whole personality of the child. Children, by nature, get interest in
occupations. This ensures successful or true learning as interest is the
basis of all real education.
http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/education/4-main-aims-of-education-as-advocated-by-john-
dewey/69151

VIII-1 | 2016
Dewey’s Democracy and Education as a Source of and a Resource for
European Educational Theory and Practice
Symposia. Dewey’s Democracy and Education as a Source of and a Resource for
European Educational Theory and Practice

Dewey’s Ancestry, Dewey’s Legacy, and The

Aims of Education in Democracy and Education
Avi I. Mintz

ABSTRACT

In Democracy and Education, in the midst of the pivotal chapter on “The Democratic Conception in
Education,” Dewey juxtaposes his educational aims with those of Plato, Rousseau, Fichte and Hegel.
Perhaps Dewey believed that an account of their views would help elucidate his own, or he intended to
suggest that his own ideas rivaled or bested theirs. I argue that Dewey’s discussion of historical
philosophers’ aims of education was also designed to critique his contemporaries subtly and by
analogy. My analysis of Dewey’s critique supports a second argument: one of the reasons Dewey’s
legacy has been long debated (particularly his relationship to pedagogical progressivism) derives from
his reluctance to criticize his contemporaries explicitly and directly. Had Dewey critiqued his fellow
American progressives in the same way he did historical European philosophers of the past, his
readers would have better understood his relationship to progressive American educational ideas and
practices. Yet Dewey’s subtle approach also accounts for the creation of a work that genuinely
 warrants being called a classic – it rises above the educational debates of the early twentieth century
to enter into a conversation with its educational ancestry, a conversation that Dewey propelled
forward.
Top of page

OUTLINE

Introduction
1. Dewey and the History of Educational Philosophy
2. Plato, Rousseau, Fichte and Hegel in Democracy and Education
3. Dewey’s Legacy

Top of page

AUTHOR'S NOTES

I am indebted to Deron Boyles and Len Waks for providing me with valuable feedback on an earlier draft of
this paper.

FULL TEXT
PDFSend by e-mail

Introduction
1 In a 1916 letter he wrote “[t]he Democracy and Education in spite of its title is the closest attem (...)

1Democracy and Education was an ambitious project. Dewey stated in both 1916 and 1930 that it was
the most comprehensive statement of his philosophy,1 but the work achieved something even greater:
it put Dewey’s name alongside the greatest Western philosophers who addressed education. Indeed,
when Democracy and Education was published in 1916, it was hailed as the greatest work of educational
philosophy since Rousseau’s Emile (Cremin 1964: 120). By 1916, Dewey had already secured an
international reputation as the greatest educational philosopher of his day. Thus his readers may have
been inclined to receive his most comprehensive work on the philosophy of education as a landmark
work on the topic. Perhaps his early readers drew this conclusion because at the heart of Democracy
and Education is a chapter on “The Democratic Conception of Education” in which Dewey presented a
positive statement of the relationship of democracy and education followed by a critique of Plato,
Rousseau, and Fichte and Hegel. Dewey seemed to invite his readers to reflect on how his arguments
stand next to theirs.

2Did Dewey simply believe that critiquing historical philosophical conceptions of education would best
help clarify his own account? Or might Dewey have had other motivations as well? Consideration of
these questions, I argue, suggests an answer to another question, one that has persisted since the
Dewey began writing on education: Why was Dewey so frequently misread? The answer to the former
question is only partly that Dewey thought that there was value in tackling entrenched and influential
educational ideas, and that doing so helped elucidate his own views. I argue that Dewey’s discussion of
educational aims was designed not only to critique Plato and Rousseau, but also primarily, subtly, and
by analogy, to critique his American contemporaries via historical European philosophers. Recognizing
Dewey’s reticence to criticize his American contemporaries by name ought to be more seriously
considered in the voluminous debate about Dewey’s legacy. Before turning to that argument, however,
I turn to Dewey’s employment of the history of educational philosophy in his works.

1. Dewey and the History of Educational

Philosophy
3One hundred years after placing his educational aims alongside Plato, Rousseau and others
in Democracy and Education, Dewey’s analysis reads not as ambitious overreaching but as appropriate
and fitting – Democracy and Education incontestably stands among the most important works of the
history of educational thought. Yet Dewey did not regularly engage deeply the philosophers of the past
in his educational writings. Unlike, say, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida, whose works engage a
historical conversation routinely and substantively, Dewey’s educational works are only occasionally
peppered with analysis and comparison of historical ideas and concepts.

2 Dewey was consistent in his remarks about the value of history, at least, if history is understood(...)

3 On the depth of Dewey’s engagement with the Greeks in particular, see Kirby 2014.
 4Nevertheless, Dewey repeatedly made the case for the value of history in contemporary educational
theory and practice. Dewey not only read widely in the history of education and educational philosophy,
he also saw the benefit of students doing so. For example, Dewey assembled a syllabus for a “History
of Education” correspondence course through Columbia University’s School of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
On the syllabus, Dewey wrote that “teachers, parents and others interested in correct educational theory
and practice” need to recognize that “no teacher can do the best possible with the present conditions
and tendencies without knowing something of how they came to be” (LW 17: 160).2 The range of topics
and readings in the syllabus are remarkably broad; the course covers, for example, Greek, Chinese,
Roman, early Christian, Medieval, and Renaissance education, in addition to more recent history. On
the Greeks alone the students were instructed to read not only selections from Plato and Aristotle but
also selections from Protagoras, Isocrates, Aristophanes, Thucydides, and Homer. He directed students
to historical scholarship on the sophists, but Dewey warns them that the authors he assigned to them
(Paul Monroe and Thomas Davidson) exaggerate the individualistic nature of the sophists’ work (LW 17:
183-4).3 Dewey’s detailed syllabus (of which only the first four of twenty-four sections are extant)
basically amounts to its own textbook; it is evidence of the depth of Dewey’s awareness of and
engagement with not only historical educational philosophy but also contemporary scholarship on the
subject.

4 In contrast, throughout his philosophical works on subjects other than education, readers encounter (...)

5Yet Dewey’s educational publications, despite occasional references to historical figures, do not
generally explore historical philosophers’ ideas at length.4 Dewey did not need to turn to history to find
a wide variety of competing articulations of educational aims. He found himself in a particularly rich
environment in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in that regard: Dewey and his
contemporaries were deeply immersed in debates about the purpose of schooling in America. It was a
time in American history when more and more children were attending schools, and attending them for
longer. The subsequent growth of schools led to much debate about what those schools ought to
accomplish; should they prepare graduates for work, for college, or for “life”? Should they cultivate
discipline, or develop students’ interests? The list could go on – the chapter headings of Democracy and
Education capture the wealth of educational aims debated while Dewey was writing. And, yet, at the
key moment of argument in Democracy and Educationis a critique of some of the giants of the western
canon rather than his contemporaries. Why does Dewey turn to historical philosophers instead of his
contemporaries’ arguments?

2. Plato, Rousseau, Fichte and Hegel

in Democracy and Education
6In chapter seven, arguably the heart of Democracy and Education, Dewey made the case that
“democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint
communicated experience,” and provided two standards for evaluating the quality of social life: “the
extent in which the interests of a group are shared by all its members, and the fullness and freedom
with which it interacts with other groups” (MW 9: 105). His conception of the relationship of democracy
and education is presented in the first two sections of chapter seven (7.1 and 7.2). In a somewhat
abrupt transition, he wrote,

5 Part of the unnaturalness in the transition in the argument may have been due to the fact that the(...)

subsequent chapters will be devoted to making explicit the implications of the democratic ideas in education.
In the remaining portions of this chapter, we shall consider the educational theories which have been
evolved in three epochs when the social import of education was especially conspicuous. (MW 9: 94)5

77.3 focuses on Plato, 7.4 on Rousseau (primarily, at least, as the most prominent figure of “The
‘Individualistic’ Ideal of the Eighteenth Century”) and 7.5 on Fichte and Hegel (as representatives of
“Education as National and as Social”).

8Dewey wrote that Plato’s educational philosophy is “in bondage to static ideals […] the final end of life
is fixed” (MW 9: 97). Further, Plato “limited his view to a ‘general and ultimate’ aim,” which Dewey
warned, is something that “educators have to be on their guard against” (MW 9: 116). Dewey’s critique,
on the one hand, makes sense. Plato’s Socrates does indeed discuss the value of understanding the
ultimate aim of education – establishing a just community under the wise leadership. And Plato’s
Socrates does indeed propose a society with three fixed classes. Yet there is something unsatisfactory
in Dewey’s analysis. Plato’s Republic is not the only place one could find a society that is “in bondage to
static ideals” nor is it necessarily the best example of that. Dewey knew well of class-based societies of
the past and in 1916. Was Plato really the best source for this critique? Dewey ignores most of the
innovations that Plato’s Socrates describes that have become influential in educational philosophy and
are of continued influence in higher education. There is no discussion of the broad liberal arts curriculum
of The Republic’sBook VII (521d-34e). He offers no discussion on the importance of gender equality in
education, or the lasting effects on character of stories, music, and poetry. Perhaps most surprisingly
 given Dewey’s task at hand, he neglects to address Socrates’ critique of democracy in Book VIII (555b-
566b). Dewey has not necessarily mischaracterized Socrates’ argument, but the reader begins to wonder
why Dewey would turn to Plato at such a critical point of Democracy and Education if his treatment of
Plato is so partial.

9I shall discuss Dewey’s analysis of Rousseau, Fichte, and Hegel below, but for now it suffices to say
that Dewey’s engagement with their ideas in Chapter 7 is also conspicuously limited. Indeed, among
the copious scholarship on Democracy and Education since its publication one hundred years ago, very
little scholarship has appeared on Dewey’s treatment therein of Plato, Rousseau, Hegel, and Fichte. And
this is fitting, since, as I’ll argue, his engagement serves another purpose. So why did he address them
at all, let alone put them at the very core of his book?

10One obvious and incontestably valid reason is that Dewey believed that through critique of the ideas
of others, he could more clearly articulate his own educational philosophy. Using Plato, Rousseau, and
others to test out his two standards of democratic education is clearly central to Dewey’s use of them.
But since he spends most of Democracy and Education applying these standards in great depth to
contemporary concerns, and does so quite successfully, the value of these historical philosophers in the
book is questionable.

11Another explanation might be that Dewey intended to place himself alongside Plato and Rousseau as
one of the greatest educational philosophers in history. By 1916, Dewey was already hailed
internationally as the leading educational theorist of his generation, so maybe he believed there to be
value in distinguishing his own views from the other giants of educational thought. Dewey may have
wanted to juxtapose his argument with theirs to illuminate the new, paradigm challenging directions he
sought to take educational philosophy and society more generally.

12As should be clear from my discussion of Dewey’s history course, I do not believe that Dewey was
either poorly informed about the history of educational philosophy, nor that he was uninterested in it.
To the contrary, Dewey’s “History of Education” syllabus suggests that he was eminently capable of
providing a more robust critique of those historical philosophers should he have elected to do so. There
is something else at play in chapter seven: Dewey used these historical accounts to critique his
contemporaries’ educational theories and practices.

13In the two decades preceding the publication of Democracy and Education, and during the period that
he was writing it, Dewey was immersed in thinking about and popularizing child-centered, progressive,
experimental schools. Dewey’s followers and critics often associated him with child-centered,
pedagogical progressives, but this was an association he often resisted.

6 In My Pedagogic Creed, he wrote that a student’s interest is not to be “repressed,” but, pointedly, (...)

14Dewey’s criticism of Rousseau in Democracy and Education is targeted not only at Rousseau, and, I
argue, not primarily at Rousseau. In chapter nine, Dewey explicitly wrote that nature as aim is “of recent
influence” (MW 9: 118), appealing to the “educational reformers disgusted with the conventionality and
artificiality of the scholastic methods,” but that “since no one has stated in the doctrine both its truth
and falsity better than Rousseau, we shall turn to him” (MW 9: 119). Dewey had long been warning of
the excesses of child-centered, pedagogical progressivism.6 Democracy and Education was no exception
as Dewey reiterated that, for example, the “idealizing of childhood” was in effect “nothing but lazy
indulgence” (MW 9: 56). Dewey’s criticism of pedagogical progressivism was not of merely theoretical
problems that a progressive school might encounter; by 1916, in addition to the experiences with the
progressive Colonel Francis Parker’s school (which Dewey’s children had attended: see Westbrook 1991:
96) and his own Laboratory School, Dewey was well aware of the pitfalls of the “new” education, and
his knowledge of these schools informed his analysis in Democracy and Education.

7 The criticism of Montessori schools was minimal, but the fact that the Montessori schools received (...)

15In Schools of To-Morrow, published in 1915, Dewey provided an account of several schools that
endorsed Rousseauean ideals, ideals about which he would point out many flaws in Democracy and
Education. Dewey and his daughter and co-author wrote that, of the various schools they described,
“most of these points of similarity are found in the views advocated by Rousseau” (MW 8: 389). For
example, of Mrs. Johnson at Fairhope, in Alabama, they noted that “her main underlying principle is
Rousseau’s central idea” about the nature of childhood (MW 8: 222). Dewey did not criticize these
individuals or schools directly though, despite the fact that the schools are, in many ways, examples of
the “new” education that he consistently described as extreme in My Pedagogic Creed, The Child and
the Curriculum, and in other educational writings. Only Rousseau and, to a much lesser extent, the
Italian educational theorist Maria Montessori are targets of any direct criticism in the Schools of To-
Morrow.7

8 Dewey was not beyond character attacks on Rousseau. In the opening of chapter four of Schools of To (...)

9 By the 1920s, many schools would be caricatured for their laissez-faire approach, including that of (...)
10 After its publication, he was quick to deny that the schools described in Schools of To-Morrowwere (...)

11 For example: “They are uniformly happy in school, and enthusiastically proclaim their ‘love’ for it (...)

16Rousseau stands in for the sorts of schools and teachers he described in Schools of To-
Morrow. In Democracy and Education, Dewey criticized Rousseau because “merely to leave everything
to nature was, after all, but to negate the very idea of education” (MW 9: 99). 8 Such a clear, harsh
attack is never leveled at Dewey’s American contemporary pedagogical progressives by name, though
“leaving things to nature” was very much an orienting ideal of the progressive schools that were being
conceived of or opening in that period.9 Only in the conclusion of Schools of To-Morrow does Dewey
note, in what might be read as a rebuke of the schools described, that “mere activity, if not directed
toward some end, may result in developing muscular strength, but it can have very little effect on the
mental development of the pupils” (MW 8: 391). Is the conclusion referring to schools reported on in
the book, or to other schools which fall short of the examples reported on in the book? The reader is
left to speculate about whether the schools described in Schools of To-Morrow somehow met the ideals
of democratic schools that Dewey described in the conclusion.10 Nor in all of the reporting of the schools
in Schools of To-Morrow, in which the joy, cheerfulness, and happiness of the children is a frequent
theme,11 does Dewey raise a concern that the emphasis on the individual might result in neglecting the
social aspect of education. The criticism falls on Rousseau alone, and the “sentimental egotism” of his
educational philosophy (MW 8: 249).

17Maybe Dewey considered the American educators featured in Schools of To-Morrow – unlike
Montessori and Rousseau – too minor or too close to him to warrant rebuke from him; Dewey would
have been well aware that his opinion on all matters educational was taken very seriously by the 1910s,
and may therefore have been reluctant to judge harshly the educational pioneers he featured. But to
better understand Dewey’s reluctance to criticize pedagogical progressives, we might consider the case
of William Heard Kilpatrick, who was arguably the most influential pedagogical progressive. Two years
after the publication of Democracy and Education, Kilpatrick (1918) published “The Project Method,”
instantly launching him to the forefront of the charge to implement the “new” education in schools.

18In the view of many scholars, Dewey labored tirelessly to distinguish himself from child-centered
progressives. Westbrook, for example, writes that Dewey “took every available opportunity” (Westbrook
1991: 502) to challenge them, and that he was “anxious to distinguish his thinking from that of other
reformers with whom he profoundly disagreed” (Ibid.: 501). Westbrook names Kilpatrick as “one of
[Dewey’s] principal targets” (Ibid.: 504). Yet the direct references to Kilpatrick in Dewey’s Collected
Works tend to be positive. Though scholars point to essays like “The Way Out of Our Educational
Confusion” (LW 6: 75-89) as a direct attack on the project method, the work never mentions Kilpatrick
by name. And Dewey’s criticism in that essay could be read as directed not at the project method in
principle, but rather at the way that the project method was implemented in some elementary schools.
One searching Dewey’s Collected Works for explicit, sustained critical engagement with Kilpatrick’s ideas
would find only the appreciative foreword Dewey penned for Kilpatrick’s biography in 1952 (LW 17: 52-
6).

19In Democracy and Education, readers encounter similar reluctance. Dewey challenged Rousseau
because it enabled him to air, once again, his criticism of pedagogical progressivism. The effectiveness
of Dewey’s indirect criticism of pedagogical progressivism is something to which I shall return in the
next section. First, we might recognize that Dewey’s approach was similar when addressing the social
efficiency progressives.

20In his critique of German nationalistic ideals in 7.5, Dewey explicitly noted that social efficiency was
emphasized as an aim of nationalistic education; in Germany,

the school system […] supplied the patriotic citizen and soldier and the future state official and administrator
and furnished the means for military, industrial, and political defense and expansion, it was impossible for
theory not to emphasize the aim of social efficiency. (MW 9: 100; emphasis added)

12 I speak broadly about social efficiency progressivism, though it is an “amorphous, if not ambiguous (...)

21Dewey’s discussion of nineteenth century political and social aims in chapter seven (a line of argument
he continued in chapter nine), allowed him to critique the administrative, social efficiency progressives
indirectly.12

22The social and national aims attributed to Fichte and Hegel in 7.5 diverged in two important ways
among Dewey’s contemporaries. On the one hand, some maintained the Hegelian framework for viewing
individuals as needing to be civilized, in a sense, and brought into a national culture. The educational
expression of this Hegelian view was the much debated (and much scorned by progressives) Committee
of Ten Report of 1893 and the Committee of Fifteen Report of 1895. Charles W. Eliot and William Torrey
Harris made an unapologetic case for a broad, liberal arts curriculum for all (rejecting the progressive
calls for curricular differentiation). Dewey suggested in his analysis of national and social aims, as well
as his discussion of culture as aim (in chapter nine, section three), that a rigid, common, liberal arts
 curriculum is yet another way that an individual student’s interests are subordinated to an external end,
in this case to initiate the student into culture.

23On the other hand, social efficiency progressives like David Snedden argued that schools should
prepare students for their civic, economic roles in the state. Social efficiency, in Dewey’s analysis,
subordinated the student to a civic goal. Dewey criticized social efficiency progressives for articulating
a vision of education that would only perpetuate the status quo, even exacerbating social stratification
in which different schools prepared students for a life similar to that of their parents’ community:

It is the aim of progressive education to take part in correcting unfair privilege and unfair deprivation, not to
perpetuate them […] there is a danger that industrial education will be dominated by acceptance of
the status quo. (MW 9: 126)

24Dewey wrote an essay criticizing vocational education in The New Republic in 1914 to which David
Snedden responded. Dewey’s rejoinder was published along with Snedden’s critique in 1915 in the same
magazine. In both essays, Dewey wrote that industrial, vocational education accepts the current class
divisions and perpetuates them. In 1914 he wrote,

13 Dewey noted that the defenders of vocational education often cited Germany as a model. Dewey warned (...)

every ground of public policy protests against any use of the public school system which takes for granted
the perpetuity of the existing industrial regime, and whose inevitable effect is to perpetuate it, with all its
antagonism of employer and employed, producer and consumer.13

25In 1915, he wrote,

14 Dewey also wrote in that article that “[t]he kind of vocational education in which I am interested (...)

I am utterly opposed to giving the power of social predestination, by means of narrow trade-training, to any
group of fallible men no matter how well-intentioned they may be. (MW 8: 411)14

26In Democracy and Education, rather than targeting David Snedden directly for his efforts to determine
students’ aptitudes and, consequently, their civic and economic potential, Dewey wrote broadly of the
problem of subordinating the individual to the state. Snedden’s name appears nowhere in Democracy
and Education, not even when Dewey turns again to the topic of social efficiency in chapter nine, nor
when he explicitly addresses vocational aspects of education in chapter twenty-three.

15 Two decades after writing Democracy and Education, Dewey would pen two essays in The Social Frontie (...)

27Just as section 7.5 offers a subtle critique of two of Dewey’s contemporaries’ schools of thought, so
too does the critique of Plato in 7.3. One might expect that Dewey would have been likely to criticize
advocates of traditional education more directly. But despite Dewey’s consistent, trenchant critiques of
traditional education, he rarely targets specific individuals who promote or practice such pedagogy. 15 In
Plato, Dewey finds another stand in because, just as in the “old education,” static knowledge serves as
an end, and inflexibility and resistance to change are underlying principles (MW 9: 94 and 97).
Additionally, perhaps the critique of Plato targets advocates of “culture as aim” such as William Torrey
Harris, who thought that they could help the nation’s youth escape from the cave, joining the ranks of
the enlightened. Like Plato, Harris proposed a rigid, “academic” curriculum. At the same time, Dewey’s
concerns about class stratification targeted the social efficiency progressives because of the way their
educational vision was centered on preparing students for particular kinds of employment, as I described
above. In his discussion of vocational education in chapter twenty three, Dewey explicitly invoked Plato
and described his most significant error as his “limited conception of the scope of vocations socially
needed” (MW 9: 319).

16 Likewise he wrote: “A knowledge of the past and its heritage is of great significance when it enter (...)

28Dewey’s approach to the historical philosophers’ ideas in chapter seven reveals that Dewey was not
primarily concerned with illuminating the logic and nuances of those philosophers’ arguments. Rather,
Dewey highlighted in his analysis only the ideas that were influential, advocated, or debated among his
contemporaries. And this treatment of historical philosophers is consistent with Dewey’s general ideas
about the value of history. “History,” Dewey wrote, “deals with the past, but this past is the history of
the present” (MW 9: 222).16 Indeed, Dewey’s discussion of Plato, Rousseau, and the German Idealists
ought to be read primarily as an engagement with the present – a vehicle to advance criticism of his
contemporaries.

Connections between Dewey’s historical critique and his contemporaries

Direct Target Indirect Target

 Plato Traditional education and “culture as aim” advocates who sought a fixed curriculum
and “static ideals” (e.g. William Torrey Harris)
Social efficiency progressives who sought to determine children’s potential and
provide an education tailored to that potential (e.g., David Snedden)

Rousseau Pedagogical, child-centered progressives (e.g. the educators featured in Schools of To-
Morrow)

Fichte and Social efficiency progressives who subordinated the individual to serve the state’s
Hegel industrial régime (e.g. David Snedden)
Hegelian defenders of traditional education who believed the state’s role is to civilize
citizens, initiating them into national culture (e.g. William Torrey Harris)

3. Dewey’s Legacy
17 Cremin offers a nuanced version of this position: “[A]s the twenties progressed, he became less the (...)

18 In addition to my above discussion of the critique of Rousseau, see note 6.

19 See Kandel 1958. See also Null 2007. Another related but distinct claim is that Dewey’s pragmatic p (...)

20 E.g. Cremin (1964: 238-9). H. L. Mencken wrote that Dewey “is the worst writer ever heard of in Ame (...)

29It is by now a commonplace among Dewey scholars that Dewey’s name was often invoked to support
ideas and practices that were dramatically opposed to his intent. Scholars have proposed a variety of
theories to explain this state of affairs. Some have argued that, early in his career, he advocated child-
centered progressivism, and only later became its critic (most prominently in Experience and
Education).17 But such an explanation is not supported by Dewey’s works, since, from his earliest works,
he warned against excessive indulgence of children’s interests, and a variety of other beliefs and
practices that characterized pedagogical progressivism.18 Another theory suggests that it was Dewey’s
disciples who molded Deweyan theory into practice, and Dewey’s lofty, complex ideas were often
simplified into practices that emphasized the “new” education, while failing to incorporate what Dewey
argued was valuable about the “old” education. William Heard Kilpatrick is frequently identified as the
culprit, and has been at least since the 1950s.19Sometimes the argument of disciples’ influence is
proposed alongside an argument that Dewey was unclear about the practicalities of his theory or that
he was difficult to read.20 Another explanation is that the middle road that Dewey sought to construct
between the traditional and new curriculum led to his irrelevance to each side; Dewey’s criticism of the
traditional curriculum was too radical for most American educators to follow, and his failure to go as far
as the pedagogical progressives failed to garner their support (Westbrook 1991: 508).

21 See note 7.

22 On the Robert Hutchins exception, see note 15.

30Other than the theory that Dewey changed course in his career, all of the other explanations for
Dewey’s legacy have merit. But one ought to consider whether Dewey’s ideas would have been better
understood if he had been willing to challenge the ideas of others more directly. Readers of Schools of
To-Morrow and Democracy and Education can point to precise critiques of Montessori that not only
better illuminate Montessori’s theory, but also Dewey’s.21 Had he been willing to subject his fellow
Americans to similar direct criticism, Dewey’s arguments would have been clearer, and Dewey would
have been less easily mistaken for endorsing positions that he would have rejected. Among the clearest
of Dewey’s many discussions of vocational education, for example, is the essay he was invited to write
to respond to Snedden’s critique of him – in which, it is worth noting, Snedden read Dewey as “giving
aid and comfort to the opponents of a broader, richer and more effective program of education”
(Snedden 1915). Outside of a handful of responses similar to the one he penned to Snedden, or
occasional book reviews, Dewey rarely criticized either his fellow progressives or his critics by name in
his educational writings.22 The overall effect was to enable many of his readers to project views onto
Dewey that Dewey would not have endorsed. Furthermore, it made it more difficult for Dewey’s readers
to grasp his precise challenge to the traditional education, social efficiency progressivism, pedagogical
progressivism, and, later, social reconstructionism.

31Why might Dewey have been so reluctant to criticize others? Dewey’s work is animated by a deep
respect for those teachers and researchers who were devoting their time and energy to pedagogy and
educational reform. Perhaps the explanation is too facile, but Dewey may have hesitated to criticize the
work of his fellow American pioneers who shared with him a commitment that education is central to
 the flourishing of a democratic society and democratic citizens. Dewey seems to have preferred to
explore the ideas themselves of America’s educational reformers, scholars, and teachers, rather than
tarnish reputations. To put this in the most favorable light, Dewey’s fellow educators and education
scholars were treated with the generosity of spirit that Dewey believed ought to animate disagreements
in the best kind of society.

32Democracy and Education provides us with a prominent example of Dewey critiquing his
contemporaries subtly and by analogy. By turning to Plato, Rousseau, Fichte and Hegel in chapter seven,
Dewey’s readers of the past one hundred years may have failed to appreciate how deeply his argument
is rooted in the ideas and debates of his own lifetime. Yet Dewey’s indirect approach also accounts for
the creation of a work that genuinely warrants being called a classic – it rises above the educational
debates of the early twentieth century to enter into a conversation with its educational ancestry, a
conversation that Dewey propelled forward, giving Democracy and Education an air of timelessness.

https://journals.openedition.org/ejpap/437

Monday, September 17, 2012

Principles of Good Teaching Based on the

Educational Philosophy of John Dewey
Principles of Good Teaching Based on the Educational Philosophy of
John Dewey
(Acero, et al., 2000)

(a) Teaching is good when it is based on the psychology of learning. This is based on
the concept
that the child is made the center of the educative process. The nature of the child and
the nature
of the learning process and the laws that govern its operation determine the type of
teaching
to be done by the teacher.
Good teaching is as much about passion as it is about reason. It's about not only motivating students
to learn, but teaching them how to learn, and doing so in a manner that is relevant, meaningful,
and memorable. It's about caring for your craft, having a passion for it, and conveying that passion
to everyone, most importantly to your students.
Learning is not a spectator sport. Students do not learn much just sitting in classes listening to
teachers, memorizing pre-packaged assignments, and spitting out answers. They must talk about
what they are learning, write about it, relate it to past experiences, and apply it to their daily lives.
They must make what they learn part of themselves.
(b) Teaching is good when it is well-planned such that the activities and experiences of the learner
are continuously related and interrelated into larger, more meaningful, more inclusive, relation
patterns.
Good teaching is about substance and treating students as consumers of knowledge. It's
about doing your best to keep on top of your field, reading sources, inside and outside of
your areas of expertise, and being at the leading edge as often as possible. But knowledge is
not confined to scholarly journals. Good teaching is also about bridging the gap between
theory and practice. It's about leaving the ivory tower and immersing oneself in the field,
talking to, consulting with, and assisting practitioners, and liaisoning with their
communities.
 Schedule time for planning and preparation.
 Know what students need to know, what is essential and what is nice but not necessary.
 Know your students and be aware of their individual differences in motivation, interest, etc.
 Diagnosis: Find out what students already know.
 Prescription: Select appropriate learning objectives, not too easy and not too hard.
  Collect appropriate materials and curriculum.
 Prerequisites: Determine if children have the skills they need to succeed at a new task. If not,
teach the prerequisites first.
 Task analysis: Break assignments into "bite-sized" pieces, small sequential steps.
 Timing: Do not introduce too much at once. Step by tiny step will maximize success.
 Readiness: To check for readiness, offer tryout activities and adjust expectations as needed.
 Early success: Plan carefully to ensure early success when introducing something very new.
 Prepare checklists or contracts so students know exactly what is expected of them.
(c ) Teaching is good when the learner is made conscious of the goals or aims to be accomplished.
This concept calls for proper motivation.
Create clear student learning goals for each course, unit, and class period. Structure the course
unit and lesson with these goals in mind.
The identification and articulation of the learning goals and objectives provides the foundation for
the instructional design, development, delivery, and assessment of an educational event. These
defined goals serve as the contract between the instructor and student, defining what is to be taught
and what is to be learned. Communicating these learning goals is a crucial step in assuring an
effective learning experience.
Specific instructional activities should be directed toward providing learners with the necessary
skills, knowledge, or experiences to meet the goals and objectives of the course. The course content
should be sequenced and structured to enable learners to achieve the goals articulated in the
learning outcomes.
When learners interact with one another, with an instructor, and with ideas, new information is
acquired, interpreted, and made meaningful. Such interactions form the foundation of a community
of learners. If students feel they are part of a community of learners, they are more apt to be
motivated to seek solutions to their problems and to succeed.
(d) Learning is good when it provides learning experiences or situations that will insure understanding.
Good teaching requires a rich environment of instructional materials and devices. Instructional
materials and devices will challenge the attention of the learner, stimulate thinking, and facilitate
understanding which make learning more meaningful.
(e) Teaching is good when there is provision to meet individual differences. This is based on the
psychological principle that individuals differ from each other in their learning potential. To be
effective, teaching must treat the learner as he is, but at the same time with reference to what he
might become.
Good teaching is about listening, questioning, being responsive, and remembering that each
student and class is different. It's about eliciting responses and developing the oral communication
skills of the quiet students. It's about pushing students to excel; at the same time, it's about being
human, respecting others, and being professional at all times.
There are many roads to learning. People bring different talents and styles of learning. Brilliant
students in the seminar room may be all thumbs in the lab or art studio. Students rich in hands-on
experience may not do so well with theory. Students need the opportunity to show their talents and
learn in ways that work for them. Then they can be pushed to learning in ways that do not come
so easily.
(f) Teaching is good when it utilizes the past experiences of the learner. This concept is based on the
principle of apperception. This means that learning is easier when you start from what the pupils
already know.
Prepare thoroughly for the whole course, unit, and each lesson. Ask questions of the material
that your students are also likely to have.
 Knowing what you know and don't know focuses learning. Students need appropriate feedback on
performance to benefit from courses. In getting started, students need help in assessing existing
knowledge and competence. In classes, students need frequent opportunities to perform and
receive suggestions for improvement. At various points, and at the end, students need chances to
reflect on what they have learned, what they still need to know, and how to assess themselves.
(g) Teaching is good when the learner is stimulated to think and to reason. The best teaching method
is that which liberates and encourages thinking. Effective teaching involves differentiation and
integration or analysis and synthesis. Generalization of facts learned is important in teaching for
transfer.
Good teaching is about substance and treating students as consumers of knowledge. It's about
doing your best to keep on top of your field, reading sources, inside and outside of your areas
of expertise, and being at the leading edge as often as possible. But knowledge is not confined
to scholarly journals. Good teaching is also about bridging the gap between theory and
practice. It's about leaving the ivory tower and immersing oneself in the field, talking to,
consulting with, and assisting practitioners, and liaisoning with their communities.
(h) Teaching is good when it is governed by democratic principles. In democratic teaching, social
relationship is placed on a plane of natural respect, cooperation, tolerance, and fair play. Teaching
to be effective must be governed by love and understanding. In other words, the learners are free
from emotional tension.
Good teaching is about caring, nurturing, and developing minds and talents. It's about
devoting time, often invisible, to every student. It's also about the thankless hours of grading,
designing or redesigning courses, and preparing materials to still further enhance instruction.
This is very important -- good teaching is about humor. It's about being self-deprecating and
not taking yourself too seriously. It's often about making innocuous jokes, mostly at your own
expense, so that the ice breaks and students learn in a more relaxed atmosphere where you,
like them, are human with your own share of faults and shortcomings.
(i) Teaching is good when the method used is supplemented by another method and instructional
devices. It is an accepted fact that good method is a synthesis of many methods. This is based on
the principles that the best learning takes place when a greater number of senses are stimulated
and utilized in the process.
Good teaching is about not always having a fixed agenda and being rigid, but being flexible,
fluid, experimenting, and having the confidence to react and adjust to changing
circumstances. It's about getting only 10 percent of what you wanted to do in a class done and
still feeling good. It's about deviating from the course syllabus or lecture schedule easily when
there is more and better learning elsewhere. Good teaching is about the creative balance
between being an authoritarian dictator on the one hand and a pushover on the other.
 Gather materials, equipment and supplies beforehand.
 Review related concepts, vocabulary and ideas.
 Show enthusiasm and interest.
 Prove an overview or outline of the lesson or unit. Move from whole to part to whole.
 Objective: State and have students state the objective.
 Purpose: Why is this important to learn?
 Transfer: How does this relate to what you already know? Help students organize and connect
new knowledge to old.
 Clearly present information. Do not include non-essential information or distractors.
 Move from simple to complex.
 Move from known to unknown.
 Model or demonstrate examples as well as non-examples.
 Actively involve students. Use variety.
 Adjust the level of questions to student ability.
 Check for understanding frequently.
 Feedback: Use criticism sparingly. Provide prompt feedback with reasons.
 Guided practice: Closely monitor practice in the early stages of learning. Aim for at least 80%
success.
 Closure: At the end of a lesson, summarize or have the child summarize what was learned.
 Review and reteach as often as necessary.
(j) Teaching is good when evaluation is made an integral part of the teaching process. Evaluation is
part and parcel of teaching. Evaluation measures the effectiveness of teaching and learning and
completes the function which is essential in teaching. Teaching is meaningful only when the results
of teaching are achieved.

Assessment and measurement serve valuable purposes for both instructors and students because
they provide information on learner progress, they measure achievement of learning goals, and
they provide learners with benchmarks for monitoring their progress and adjusting their learning
strategies.
Assessment instruments and activities should be congruent with the learning goals and should be
consistent with the skills required of the learner throughout the learning process.
Assessment and measurement strategies should be employed as integral parts of the learning
experience--enabling learners to assess their progress, to identify areas for review, and to
reestablish immediate learning or lesson goals.
Assessment and measurement strategies should accommodate the special needs, characteristics,
and situations of the learner.
 The teacher is accountable to someone for diligently pursuing goals and plans.
 Self-discipline, diligence and timeliness are emphasized and rewarded.
 Students are held responsible for completing work on time and doing a quality job.
 A method exists to keep track of goals and achievements. Examples: plan book, student
contracts or checklists, conferences.
 Informal evaluation takes place constantly.
 Formal evaluation (testing) is used as needed so that students can demonstrate their mastery.
 Grades are essentially comparative and punitive. Better to keep a running list of
accomplishments.
 Evaluation is used as a basis for selecting future objectives.
(k) Teaching is good when drill or review is made an integral part of teaching and learning. The teacher
must bear in mind that drill and review have different meanings and functions. The purpose of
review is to bring out relationships of facts learned to give new view or new meaning.
 Practice is directly related to the lesson objective.
 Students are not distracted during practice time.
 Directions for practice are clear.
 Adequate practice is provided to ensure mastery.
 Generous feedback is given early on.
 Guided practice is closely monitored. It is "practice without penalty" and receives no grades or
marks.
 Students should have about an 80% success rate before independent practice is assigned.
 Practice is distributed over time. Practice is less frequent after initial instruction but continues
until mastery is achieved.
 "Mental practice" is encouraged.
http://highbeam124.blogspot.com/2012/09/principles-of-good-teaching-based-on.html

Philosophy of teaching and learning

A reason to examine philosophies of learning

An instructor’s teaching style is directly related to their philosophy of what it means to know and
learn. The rationale for making particular teaching choices becomes more apparent when new
faculty members reflect on what they believe about teaching and learning. Much of what faculty
believe comes from their own experiences as a student, the images of teaching they hold, and
their experiences as a teacher. There is, however, a body of research on teaching and learning
that may serve faculty well as they hone their teaching craft.

Philosophies of teaching and learning

Numerous philosophers have studied what it means to teach and learn, and have come up with
various explanations of the process of becoming educated. Faculty begin to refine their own
beliefs and understandings of what it means to know through examining numerous theories of
knowledge and making sense of the processes of teaching and learning in their own minds. An
few philosophies and examples of individuals who exemplify the concepts are worth exploring:
Existentialism (Maxine Greene, Jean-Paul Sartre, Soren Kierkegaard, Simone de Beauvoir),
Critical Theory (Karl Marx, Henry Geroux, Michael Apple, Paulo Friere), Behaviorism (B.F.
Skinner), Cognitivism / Developmentalism (Maria Montessori, A.S. Neill, John Dewey, Knowles,
Waldorf Schools, Reggio Emilia Schools), Social Constructivism (John Dewey, Lev Vygotsky,
Jerome Bruner, Montessori, Reggio Emilia and Waldorf Schools), Multiple Intelligences (Howard
Gardner), Brain based learning (Marian Diamond, Renate and Geoffrey Caine, Thomas
Armstrong, Candace Pert, and Eric Jensen). This is a good starting place from which to explore
other philosophies and the individuals who articulate them.

Articulating your philosophy of teaching and learning

New faculty members come to better understand their own philosophy through thinking about
what they believe about teaching and learning. One means of thinking is writing. New faculty
members benefit from taking the time to craft a teaching philosophy statement. This sort of
statement or something like it is often part of an application process for faculty positions, or it is
part of graduate studies at many universities. The clarity that results from crafting such a
statement brings to the forefront the way teaching decisions are made, and this self knowledge
will be invaluable when undertaking course planning.

http://teachingcommons.cdl.edu/cdip/facultyteaching/Philosophyofteachingandlearning.html

Dewey on Teaching and Teacher Education

Chapter (PDF Available) · January 2016 with 2,209 Reads
DOI: 10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_48-1
In book: Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314889208_Dewey_on_Teaching_and_Teacher_Education