The Dewey Readings

Even though Dewey’s first passage was difficult to get through, as it is not exactly the kind of text I am used to, it helped grease the wheels in helping me to understand his complex writing and revolutionary ideas in the following two articles.  As an aspiring teacher myself, it was an extremely interesting experience for me to read the works of one of the most influential people in the area of educational philosophy.  What I really admired and liked about Dewey’s articles were that he was very adamant for replacing traditional education with progressive education.  He essentially wanted to replace the type of teaching where educators would recite information out of textbooks (usually from the past) to students and expect them to memorize it with a new type of teaching that centered around learning “of, by, and for experience.”  Dewey argued his point without bashing the ways of traditional education, supporting progressive education with viable examples, and revealing that it would not be easier but more beneficial to incorporate progressive education into schools.  He expressed that the traditional education methods produced a stagnant type of education that did not inspire students to learn nor assist them in being able to think critically or transmit their learning properly into their present and future.  But progressive education, he argued, could use actual student experience to take what students were learning in textbooks and mold it into a more effective learning experience.  Dewey believed that progressive education could be more appreciated, by students and teachers alike, and used more effectively in transmitting what is learned into a student’s present and future.