John Dewey
1859 – 1952 American philosopher, educator, psychologist
American philosopher and leading theorist of progressive, learning by doing education.
- Religion
- Raised Congregationalist, later a secular humanist.
- Affiliations
- Founded the Laboratory School at the University of Chicago; leader of progressive education.
John Dewey argued that education is a process of living and that children learn best by doing and by engaging with real problems. He founded the Laboratory School at the University of Chicago in 1896 to test his ideas and wrote influential works including Democracy and Education. He tied schooling to democracy, holding that schools should prepare active, thoughtful citizens.
Connections
- rival of Edward Thorndike — Offered a testing and measurement approach to schooling that stood against Dewey's child-centered progressivism.
- influenced Francis Wayland Parker — Dewey credited Parker as the father of progressive education.
- rival of John Taylor Gatto — Gatto's attack on institutional schooling reached back to the progressive tradition Dewey helped shape.
- associate of Maria Montessori — Contemporary progressive whose ideas paralleled and engaged hers.
- associate of Maria Montessori — Contemporary reformer whose child centered method he engaged with.
- influenced Paulo Freire — Dewey's democratic pedagogy informed Freire's thought.
- influenced Paulo Freire — Drew on Dewey's democratic and dialogic view of education.
- rival of Walter Lippmann — Dewey publicly answered Lippmann's case for expert-managed opinion by defending a more participatory public.
In the timeline
- 1897 John Dewey's Pedagogic Creed central figure
- 1899 Dewey shapes progressive education mentioned
- 1919 John Dewey founds the Progressive Education Association, 1919 central figure
- 1932 John Dewey heralds the end of 'the old individualism' central figure
- 1944 Intellectuals rank Bellamy's 'Looking Backwards' near Das Kapital mentioned
- 1961 Gatto begins teaching in New York City mentioned