Topic 3: John Dewey (1859-1952):

Learning through Experience

3.  John Dewey (1859-1952): Learning through Experience

 Education is a social process and so school is intimately related to the society that it
serves.
 Children are socially active human beings who want to explore their environment
and gain control over it.
 Education is a social process by which the immature members of the group,
especially the children, are brought to participate in the society.
 The school is a special environment established by members of society, for the
purpose of simplifying, purifying and integrating the social experience of the group
so that it can be understood, examined and used by its children.
 The sole purpose of education is to contribute to the personal and social growth of
individuals.
 The steps of the scientific or reflective method, which are extremely important in
Dewey’s educational theory are as follows:
 The learner has a “genuine situation of experience” – involvement in an activity in
which he/she is interested.
 Within this experience the learner has a “genuine problem” that stimulates thinking.
 The learner possesses the information or does research to acquire the information
needed to solve the problem.
 The learner develops possible and tentative solutions that may solve the problem.
 The learner tests the solutions by applying them to the problem. In this one way one
discovers their validity for oneself.
 The fund of knowledge of the human race-past ideas, discoveries and inventions
was to be used as the material for dealing with problems. This accumulated wisdom
of cultural heritage has to be tested. If it served human purposes, it becomes part of
a reconstructed experience.
 The school is social, scientific and democratic. The school introduces children to
society and their heritage. The school as a miniature society is a means of bringing
children into social participation.
 The school is scientific in the sense that is a social laboratory in which children and
youth could test their ideas and values. In here, the learner acquires the disposition
and procedures associated with scientific or reflective thinking and acting.
 The school is democratic because the learner is free to test all ideas, beliefs and
values. Cultural heritage, customs and institutions are all subjects to critical inquiry,
investigation and reconstruction.
 School should be used by all, it being a democratic institution. No barrier of custom
or prejudice segregate people. People ought to work together to solve common
problems.
 The authoritarian or coercive style of administration and teaching is out of place
because they block genuine inquiry and dialogue.
 Education is a social activity and the school is a social agency that helps shape
human character and behavior.
 Values are relative but sharing, cooperation, democracy are significant human
values that should be encouraged by schools.

Comments:
The Fund of Knowledge of the Human Race

 Dewey does not disregard the accumulated wisdom of the past. These past ideas,
discoveries and inventions, our cultural heritage, will be used, as the material for
dealing with problems and so will be tested. If they are not totally accurate, they will
still be part of a constructed experience. This means that the ideal learner for Dewey
is not just one who can learn by doing, e.g., conduct an experiment but one who can
connect accumulated wisdom of the past to the present.

Schools are For People and By the People

 Schools are democratic institutions where everyone regardless of age, ethnicity,

social status is welcome and is encouraged to participate in the democratic process
of decision-making. Learners and stakeholders practice and experience democracy
in schools.