Experience And Education
Experience and Education is the best concise statement on education ever published by John Dewey, the man acknowledged to be the pre-eminent educational theorist of the twentieth century. Written more than two decades after Democracy and Education (Dewey’s most comprehensive statement of his position in educational philosophy), this book demonstrates how Dewey reformulated his ideas as a result of his intervening experience with the progressive schools and in the light of the criticisms his theories had received.
Analyzing both “traditional” and “progressive” education, Dr. Dewey here insists that neither the old nor the new education is adequate and that each is miseducative because neither of them applies the principles of a carefully developed philosophy of experience. Many pages of this volume illustrate Dr. Dewey’s ideas for a philosophy of experience and its relation to education. He particularly urges that all teachers and educators looking for a new movement in education should think in terms of the deeped and larger issues of education rather than in terms of some divisive “ism” about education, even such an “ism” as “progressivism.” His philosophy, here expressed in its most essential, most readable form, predicates an American educational system that respects all sources of experience, on that offers a true learning situation that is both historical and social, both orderly and dynamic.
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Still a Landmark Book on Education,
Dewey is considered “America’s only Philosopher” par exellence, but he wrote so much that is hard to get to the core of his philosophy. In any event, whether you want to understand Dewey’s philosophical center or simply get a quick, concise overview of progressive, experience-based educational theory, this would be the book to start with. However, you might want to check out _John Dewey: The Later Works, 1938-1939_, edited by Jo A. Boydston. It not only contains “Experience and Education,” but also “Freedom and Culture,” “Theory of Valuation,” and a handful of other essays. Not only does this volume give you more of Dewey, but Boydston puts the works in historical and philosophical context. This book [is available] in both cloth or paperback editions.
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|The granddad of your granddad’s schooling.,
You can thank Dewey for making all Americans think that school should be relevant to real life and that solving problems is more important than reciting factoids. The man wrote the book on it, and this little book is his effort much later to clarify what he really meant, which is to have a balanced and informed experience, not a forced choice between extremes of the didacticc and the practical. So if you are only going to read one book to find out why he should be remembered (and revered) for much more than a decimal system in the library, read this book. And be ready to become passionate, even political, about liberating our children from factory schools which make them passive and stupid. A good companion book is C.S. Lewis’ “The Abolition of Man”, at least the first chapter, followed by “The Paideia Proposal” by Mortimer J. Adler.
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