John Dewey Philosophy

The father of pragmatism, founder of progressive education movement, John Dewey was a man of many thoughts and theories. Dewey was the most popular public philosopher of the 20th century. He changed his own mind several times over his lifetime about his philosophy theories. Dewey was significant not only in philosophy, but as an educational theorist and political analyst and activist. Dewey was a renowned philosopher of the progressive movement and was a leading figure in American education. During Dewey’s lifetime the United States not only changed from a rural to an urban society, but from an agricultural to an industrial economy.

After being schoolteacher for two years, Dewey became a graduate student in philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, where he studied under the instruction of the Idealist George S. Morris. Dewey left Johns Hopkins to take up a position at the University of Michigan teaching for the next 10 years, then he left University of Michigan for Chicago and after Dewey left Chicago in 1904 for Columbia University, where he remained until his retirement. While at Chicago Dewey's interest in educational theory and reform came to realization, in books such as The School and Society (1899), The Child and the Curriculum (1902), and later in the culminating statement Democracy and Education (1916) (Novack 1960.).

Dewey believed that community and societies reproduced themselves in two different ways, biologically and culturally. Where education is the site of cultural reproduction, as in theory that thought, feelings and actions are valuable enough to pass onto the next generation. Educators are responsible for disciplining the students to understand and appreciate the existing norms and practices of a culture, and t...

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... corporation. Dewey was correct in his way of thinking about community and social philosophies impacting how cultures can change and later effect the change in education. I believe John Dewey was a common sense thinking man and his theories and philosophies that I have read, seem to hold true. Pragmatism, which means work, comes about as wanting the truth; the things that will work and not hear about the things that won’t. I can compare to this in the agriculture industry, as most want to know what will work, in the manufacturing plants or on farms, those workers do not want to hear about things that do not work. In the classroom I can see how many of Dewey’s theories come into practice, keeping students active, the needs and interest; that is all in the agriculture classroom, because those students want to learn, known to be active and create new interest on topics.