John Dewey's Philosophy And Philosophy

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In this paper, the philosophy and works of John Dewey will be discussed in the relation to my philosophy and strategies as a teacher. A teacher is defined in Webster Dictionary as a person whose job is to teach students about certain subjects. John Dewey was a leading proponent of the American school of thought known as pragmatism. Pragmatism is a philosophical movement that includes those who claim that an ideology or proposition is true if it works satisfactorily. John Dewey was the third major figure in the classical pragmatist pantheon, whose wide-ranging writings had considerable impact on American intellectual life for a half-century (McDermid, D. 2017). During Dewey’s years at Columbia his reputation grew as a leading philosopher and …show more content…

Dewey is often misrepresented and wrongly associated with child-centered education. The curriculum traditions that have dominated north America and UK schooling over the last century cannot be easily slotted into any of Dewey’s work. Dewey believed that human beings learn through a hands-on approach. He also believed the teacher should observe the interest of the students, observe the directions they naturally take, and then serve as someone who helps develop problem-solving skills. This made Dewey’s view of the classroom more realistic, which promoted equal voice among all participants in the learning experience. Dewey believed in interdisplinary curriculum, or a curriculum that focuses on connecting multiple subjects, where students are allowed to freely move in and out of classrooms as they pursue their interests and construct their own paths for acquiring and applying knowledge. Dewey described an image as “an anticipatory sensation,” a phrase in which sensation points to a classic understanding of image as our senses and anticipatory refers to an enlarged understanding of the image as an on-going experience (Russell. 1998). Dewey saw reflective thinking as part of the historical development of the social mind and the life process of an individual human. This was Dewey’s belief during the period of his life, during the years he worked with teachers, children, and parents at Chicago Elementary School. Dewey later went to work in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago, which included teaching courses in pedagogy (the art, science of teaching as a profession). During this an elementary school that served as a kind of laboratory where teachers could conduct experiments in curriculum development. Dewey found evidence for stages of mental development in young children from an early imaginative stage grows experimental,

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