John Dewey 1859-1952

“Learning by doing”, Dewey (practical, understanding)      

“Learning by instruction”, Herbart (theoretical, memorizing)

“... If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow…” John Dewey  

Brief Bio
At the University of Chicago, 1894 where he transforms the Experimental School of F.W. Parker to his Laboratory School (progressive education)
At Columbia University (NY) 1905 where he retires 1930. He then writes “Democracy and Education” 1916.

This primary school was located under the wings of the university and he could use university facilities, then he could experiment with the students and implement some progressive education.

The name of the school would inform parents that the school was doing different things instead of the traditional ones. Everything he was doing it was with a proposed. He was forced to close the school because parents prefer the traditional teaching.

Instead of fighting with the parents he decided to write books at the university to share his thoughts with other people. However, the school was reopen few years later when he wrote some books.

We can see at the first picture that all the walls are empty and there are only two paintings that cannot be moved and seen by the kids. It’s a teacher center not a child centered.

Everything follows one center, that in this case is the teacher and the kids depend on her.

Dewey’s influence

In the second picture the kids can carry on their activities without the teacher. They are more independent. They have information all around the class and they can go to this information every time they want to. They can work in their own pace (rhythm)

The kids have their own project so they are always doing different things but everybody is involved in a task and working by making decision by themselves. This is a child centered. He was criticized because students were “dirty” at the end of the day.

Lab School in Chicago

• Founded 1894 by him known as the “Dewey School” 12 children present and one teacher .

• In 1901, with 140 children, 23 teachers, and 10 graduate students as teaching assistants.

He had to change the name of his school because there was an another school with the same name.

In this school they didn’t have the same subjects because he wanted to have cross curriculum “jobs”, preparing students for “life”. Everything it was real.

Lab School 

• Dewey resigned (1904) and left for a professorship at Columbia University, New York City. 


• Instead of beginning with reading, writing, arithmetic the lessons concentrated on topics and issues : actual life such as food, clothing, and shelter (occupations)

• In cooking, for example, the students learned and practiced reading when:

• decipher cookbooks, (read things are meaningful for students)

• record their favorite recipes,

• arithmetic when:

• count eggs,

• weigh flower,

• measure milk

Experiences with Aesthetic Quality (EAQ).

• An experience is defined as the vital sense through situations and episodes, spontaneously. we refer as “real experiences”.

• That in recalling them (experiences), we say “that was an experience”.

 I.e., “That meal in a Paris restaurant was an experience”. Aesthetic quality

• Such experiences, every successive part flows freely, without seams and without blanks.

•There are no holes, mechanical junctions, and dead centers when we have an experience.

If you have the experience you just need to remember what you did, what happen to you, so it’s easier to explain with details. When you look back to the pass and you share with somebody else (all the details) you are able to reproduce the “story”  with the same quality, this is an Aesthetic Quality.

If we can not remember something when we were in Primary it could be because it was a routine and the experience wasn’t unusual.

“My pedagogic creed”, 1897 5 issues

“My Pedagogic creed”

1. “True education comes through the stimulation of the child's’ powers by the demands of the social situations in which he/she finds him/herself.”

Child’s powers = interest, abilities, potencial...

Every single child has a different stimulation of interest

2. “The child’s own instinct and powers furnish the material and give the starting point for all education”.

If you have students individual attention (you need to know them), you have it all. It’s very important their motivation to be able to start working.

3. “I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not preparation for future living”

The teacher has to respect every single individual but also has to work in the society level.