Thorndike's Theory of Learning

1)The most basic form of learning is trial and error learning.

2)Learning is incremental not insightful.
3)Learning is not mediated by ideas.
4)All mammals learn in the same manner.
5)Law of readiness Interference with goal directed behavior causes frustration and causing
someone to do something they do not want to do is also frustrating.
a.When someone is ready to perform some act, to do so is satisfying.
b.When someone is ready to perform some act, not to do so is annoying.
c.When someone is not ready to perform some act and is forced to do so, it is annoying.
6)Law of Exercise We learn by doing. We forget by not doing, although to a small extent
only.
a.Connections between a stimulus and a response are strengthened as they are used.(law of
use)
b.Connections between a stimulus and a response are weakened as they are not used.(law of
disuse)
7)Law of effect If the response in a connection is followed by a satisfying state of affairs, the
strength of the connection is considerably increased whereas if followed by an annoying state
of affairs, then the strength of the connection is marginally decreased.
8)Multiple Responses A learner would keep trying multiple responses to solve a problem
before it is actually solved.
9)Set or Attitude Set or attitude is what the learner already possesses, like prior learning
experiences, present state of the learner, etc., while it begins learning a new task.
10)Prepotency of Elements Different responses to the same environment would be evoked by
different perceptions of the environment which act as the stimulus to the responses. Different
perceptions would be subject to the prepotency of different elements for different perceivers.
11)Response from analogy New problems are solved by using solution techniques employed
to solve analogous problems.
12)Associative Shifting Let stimulus S be paired with response R. Now, if stimulus Q is
presented simultaneously with stimulus S repeatedly, then stimulus Q is likely to get paired
with response R.
13)Belongingness If there is a natural relationship between the need state of an organism and
the effect caused by a response, learning is more effective than if the relationship is unnatural.
Theory of emotion
James is one of the two namesakes of the James-Lange theory of emotion, which he
formulated independently of Carl Lange in the 1880s. The theory holds that emotion is the
mind's perception of physiological conditions that result from some stimulus. In James' oft-
cited example; it is not that we see a bear, fear it, and run. We see a bear and run,
consequently we fear the bear. Our mind's perception of the higher adrenaline level,
heartbeat, etc., is the emotion.
This way of thinking about emotion has great consequences for the philosophy of aesthetics.
Here is a passage from his great work, Principles of Psychology, that spells out those
consequences.
[W]e must immediately insist that aesthetic emotion, pure and simple, the pleasure given us by certain
lines and masses, and combinations of colors and sounds, is an absolutely sensational experience, an
optical or auricular feeling that is primary, and not due to the repercussion backwards of other
sensations elsewhere consecutively aroused. To this simple primary and immediate pleasure in certain
pure sensations and harmonious combinations of them, there may, it is true, be added secondary
pleasures; and in the practical enjoyment of works of art by the masses of mankind these secondary
pleasures play a great part. The more classic one's taste is, however, the less relatively important are
the secondary pleasures felt to be, in comparison with those of the primary sensation as it comes in.
Classicism and romanticism have their battles over this point. Complex suggestiveness, the
awakening of vistas of memory and association, and the stirring of our flesh with picturesque mystery
and gloom, make a work of art romantic. The classic taste brands these effects as coarse and tawdry,
and prefers the naked beauty of the optical and auditory sensations, unadorned with frippery or
foliage. To the romantic mind, on the contrary, the immediate beauty of these sensations seems dry
and thin. I am of course not discussing which view is right, but only showing that the discrimination
between the primary feeling of beauty, as a pure incoming sensible quality, and the secondary
emotions which are grafted thereupon, is one that must be made.
[edit] William James' bear
From Joseph LeDoux's description of William James' Emotion [13]
Why do we run away if we notice that we are in danger? Because we are
afraid of what will happen if we don't. This obvious (and incorrect) answer
to a seemingly trivial question has been the central concern of a century-
old debate about the nature of our emotions.

It all began in 1884 when William James published an article titled "What Is
an Emotion?"[14] The article appeared in a philosophy journal called Mind,
as there were no psychology journals yet. It was important, not because it
definitively answered the question it raised, but because of the way in
which James phrased his response. He conceived of an emotion in terms of
a sequence of events that starts with the occurrence of an arousing
stimulus {the sympathetic nervous system or the parasympathetic
nervous system}; and ends with a passionate feeling, a conscious
emotional experience. A major goal of emotion research is still to elucidate
this stimulus-to-feeling sequence—to figure out what processes come
between the stimulus and the feeling.

James set out to answer his question by asking another: do we run from a
bear because we are afraid or are we afraid because we run? He proposed
 that the obvious answer, that we run because we are afraid, was wrong,
and instead argued that we are afraid because we run:

Our natural way of thinking about... emotions is that the mental

perception of some fact excites the mental affection called emotion, and
that this latter state of mind gives rise to the bodily expression. My thesis
on the contrary is that the bodily changes follow directly the PERCEPTION
of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they
occur is the emotion (called 'feeling' by Damasio).

The essence of James' proposal was simple. It was premised on the fact
that emotions are often accompanied by bodily responses (racing heart,
tight stomach, sweaty palms, tense muscles, and so on; sympathetic
nervous system) and that we can sense what is going on inside our body
much the same as we can sense what is going on in the outside world.
According to James, emotions feel different from other states of mind
because they have these bodily responses that give rise to internal
sensations, and different emotions feel different from one another because
they are accompanied by different bodily responses and sensations. For
example, when we see James' bear, we run away. During this act of
escape, the body goes through a physiological upheaval: blood pressure
rises, heart rate increases, pupils dilate, palms sweat, muscles contract in
certain ways (evolutionary, innate defense mechanisms). Other kinds of
emotional situations will result in different bodily upheavals. In each case,
the physiological responses return to the brain in the form of bodily
sensations, and the unique pattern of sensory feedback gives each
emotion its unique quality. Fear feels different from anger or love because
it has a different physiological signature {the parasympathetic nervous
system for love}. The mental aspect of emotion, the feeling, is a slave to
its physiology, not vice versa: we do not tremble because we are afraid or
cry because we feel sad; we are afraid because we tremble and are sad
because we cry.

[edit] Philosophy of history

G. Stanley Hall
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Granville Stanley Hall, circa 1910.

Granville Stanley Hall (February 1, 1844 - April 24, 1924) was a pioneering American
psychologist and educator. His interests focused on childhood development and evolutionary
theory. Hall was the first president of the American Psychological Association and the first
president of Clark University.
Born in Ashfield, Massachusetts, Hall graduated from Williams College in 1867, then studied
at the Union Theological Seminary. Inspired by Wilhelm Wundt's Principles of Physiological
Psychology, he earned his doctorate in psychology under William James at Harvard
University, after which he spent time at Wundt's Leipzig laboratory.
He began his career by teaching English and philosophy at Antioch College in Yellow
Springs, Ohio. In 1882 (until 1888), he was appointed as a Professor of Psychology and
Pedagogics at Johns Hopkins University, and began what is considered to be the first
American psychology laboratory.[1] There, Hall objected vehemently to the emphasis on
teaching traditional subjects, e.g., Latin, mathematics, science and history, in high school,
arguing instead that high school should focus more on the education of adolescents than on
preparing students for college.
In 1887, he founded the American Journal of Psychology and in 1892 was appointed as the
first president of the American Psychological Association.[1] In 1889, he was named the first
President of Clark University, a post he filled until 1920. During his 31 years as President,
Hall remained intellectually active. He was instrumental in the development of educational
psychology, and attempted to determine the effect adolescence has on education. He was also
responsible for inviting Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung to visit and deliver lectures in 1909.
Group photo 1909 in front of Clark University. Front row: Sigmund Freud,
Granville Stanley Hall, C.G.Jung; back row: Abraham A. Brill, Ernest Jones, Sandor
Ferenczi.

Statue at the center of campus of Sigmund Freud, commemorating his 1909 visit
to the University by invitation of G.S. Hall

Darwin's theory of evolution and Ernst Haeckel's recapitulation theory were large influences
on Hall's career. These ideas prompted Hall to examine aspects of childhood development in
order to learn about the inheritance of behavior. The subjective character of these studies
made their validation impossible. His work also delved into controversial portrayals of the
differences between women and men, as well as the concept of racial eugenics.[1]
Hall coined the phrase "storm and stress" with reference to adolescence, taken from the
German Sturm und Drang movement. Its three key aspects are conflict with parents, mood
disruptions, and risky behavior. As was later the case with the work of Lev Vygotsky and Jean
Piaget, public interest in this phrase, as well as with Hall's originating role, faded. Recent
research has led to some reconsideration of the phrase and its denotation. In its three aspects,
recent evidence supports storm and stress, but only when modified to take into account
individual differences and cultural variations. Currently, psychologists do not accept storm
and stress as universal, but do acknowledge the possibility in brief passing. Not all
adolescents experience storm and stress, but storm and stress is more likely during
adolescence than at other ages.
Hall's major books were Adolescence (1904) and Aspects of Child Life and Education (1921).
Hall also coined the technical words describing types of tickling; knismesis or feather-like
tickling, and gargalesis for the harder, laughter inducing type.
Charles Hubbard Judd
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Charles H. Judd)

Jump to: navigation, search

Charles Hubbard Judd (February 20, 1873 - July 18, 1946) was an American educational
psychologist who played an influential role in the formation of the discipline. Part of the
larger scientific movement of this period, Judd pushed for the use of scientific methods to the
understanding of education and, thus, wanted to limit the use of theory in the field. Born in
India, he obtained a PhD at the University of Leipzig under the tutelage of Wilhelm Wundt.
Judd was director of the Department of Education at the University of Chicago from 1909 to
1938. His works include Genetic Psychology for Teachers, Psychology of Social Institutions
and Psychology of High-School Subjects (Boston, 1915).

This article about a psychologist is a stub. You can help by expanding it.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Hubbard_Judd"

Charles Hubbard Judd
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Charles H. Judd)

Jump to: navigation, search

Charles Hubbard Judd (February 20, 1873 - July 18, 1946) was an American educational
psychologist who played an influential role in the formation of the discipline. Part of the
larger scientific movement of this period, Judd pushed for the use of scientific methods to the
understanding of education and, thus, wanted to limit the use of theory in the field. Born in
India, he obtained a PhD at the University of Leipzig under the tutelage of Wilhelm Wundt.
Judd was director of the Department of Education at the University of Chicago from 1909 to
1938. His works include Genetic Psychology for Teachers, Psychology of Social Institutions
and Psychology of High-School Subjects (Boston, 1915).

This article about a psychologist is a stub. You can help by expanding it.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Hubbard_Judd"

Make a donation to Wikipedia and give the gift of knowledge!

John Dewey
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

For the structural geologist, see John Frederick Dewey.

John Dewey

Western Philosophy
20th-century philosophy

Full name John Dewey

School/tradi
Pragmatism
tion

Main Philosophy of education,

interests Epistemology, Journalism, Ethics

Notable
Educational progressivism
ideas

Influenced by[show]

Influenced[show]
John Dewey (October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist,
and educational reformer whose thoughts and ideas have been highly influential in the United
States and around the world. Dewey, along with Charles Sanders Peirce and William James,
is recognized as one of the founders of the philosophical school of pragmatism. He is also
one of the founders of functional psychology and was a leading representative of the
progressive movement in U.S. schooling during the first half of the 20th century.[1]
Although Dewey is best known for his works on education, he also wrote on a wide range of
subjects, including experience and nature, art and experience, logic and inquiry, democracy,
and ethics.
In his advocacy of democracy, Dewey considered two fundamental elements—schools and
civil society—as being key areas needing attention and reconstruction to encourage
experimental intelligence and plurality. In the necessary reconstruction of civil society,
Dewey asserted that full democracy was to be obtained not just by extending voting rights but
also by ensuring that there exists a fully-formed public opinion, accomplished by effective
communication among citizens, experts, and politicians, with the latter being held
accountable for the policies they adopt.

Contents
[hide]
• 1 Life and works
• 2 Dewey and functional
psychology
• 3 Pragmatism and
instrumentalism
○ 3.1 Epistemology
○ 3.2 Logic and method
○ 3.3 Aesthetics
• 4 On democracy
• 5 On education
• 6 On journalism
• 7 On humanism
• 8 Social and political activism
• 9 Other interests
• 10 Criticism
• 11 Academic awards
• 12 Publications
• 13 Works about Dewey
• 14 References
• 15 See also
• 16 External links
[edit] Life and works
Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont of modest family origins.[2] Like his older brother,
Davis Rich Dewey, he attended the University of Vermont, from which he graduated (Phi
Beta Kappa) in 1879. After three years as a high school teacher in Oil City, Pennsylvania,
Dewey decided that he was unsuited for employment in primary or secondary education.
After studying one year under G. Stanley Hall, working in the first American laboratory of
psychology, Dewey received his Ph.D. from the School of Arts & Sciences at Johns Hopkins
University in 1884, he took a faculty position at the University of Michigan (1884-1888 and
1889-1894) with the help of George Sylvester Morris. His unpublished and now lost
dissertation was titled "The Psychology of Kant".
In 1894 Dewey joined the newly founded University of Chicago (1894-1904) where he
shaped his belief in an empirically based theory of knowledge aligning his ideals with the
newly emerging Pragmatic school of thought. His time at the University of Chicago resulted
in four essays collectively entitled Thought and its Subject-Matter which was published with
collected works from his colleagues at Chicago under the collective title Studies in Logical
Theory (1903). During this time Dewey also founded the University of Chicago Laboratory
Schools where he was able to actualize his pedagogical beliefs which provided material for
his first major work on education, The School and Society (1899). Disagreements with the
administration ultimately led to his resignation from the University at which point he left for
the East Coast. In 1899, John Dewey was elected president of the American Psychological
Association. From 1904 until his death he was professor of philosophy at both Columbia
University and Teachers College.[3] In 1905 he became president of the American
Philosophical Association. He was a long-time member of the American Federation of
Teachers.
Along with the historian Charles Beard, economists Thorstein Veblen and James Harvey
Robinson, Dewey is one of the founders of The New School for Social Research. Dewey's
most significant writings were "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology" (1896), a critique of
a standard psychological concept and the basis of all his further work; Democracy and
Education (1916), his celebrated work on progressive education; Human Nature and Conduct
(1922), a study of the role of habit in human behavior; The Public and its Problems (1927), a
defense of democracy written in response to Walter Lippmann's The Phantom Public (1925);
Experience and Nature (1925), Dewey's most "metaphysical" statement; Art as Experience
(1934), Dewey's major work on aesthetics; A Common Faith (1934), a humanistic study of
religion, which was originally delivered as the Dwight H. Terry Lectureship at Yale; Logic:
The Theory of Inquiry (1938), an examination of Dewey's unusual conception of logic;
Freedom and Culture (1939), a political work examining the roots of fascism; and Knowing
and the Known (1949), a book written in conjunction with Arthur F. Bentley that
systematically outlines the concept of trans-action which is central to his other works. While
each of these works focuses on one particular philosophical theme, Dewey wove all of his
major themes into everything he wrote. His professional life was extremely productive and
consisted of over 700 articles in 140 journals, and roughly 40 books.
Dewey married twice, with first wife Alice Chipman, who bore him six children[2] and
second wife Roberta Lowitz Grant[3].

[edit] Dewey and functional psychology

See also: History of psychology

At University of Michigan, Dewey published his first two books, Psychology (1887), and
Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding (1888), both of which expressed
Dewey's early commitment to Hegelian idealism. Psychology explored the synthesis between
this idealism and experimental science that Dewey was then attempting to effect.[4]
While still professor of philosophy at Michigan, Dewey and his junior colleagues, James
Hayden Tufts and George Herbert Mead, together with his student James Rowland Angell, all
strongly influenced by the recent publication of William James' landmark Principles of
Psychology (1890), began to reformulate psychology, focusing more strongly on the social
environment and on the activity of mind and behaviour than the physiological psychology of
Wundt and his followers.
By 1894, Dewey had joined Tufts, with whom he would later write Ethics (1908), at the
newly-founded University of Chicago and invited Mead and Angell to follow him, the four
forming the core of the so-called "Chicago group" of psychology.
Their new approach to psychology, later dubbed functional psychology, had a more practical
emphasis on action and application. In Dewey's article "The Reflex Arc Concept in
Psychology" which appeared in Psychological Review in 1896, he reasons against the
traditional stimulus-response understanding of the reflex arc in favor of a "circular" account
in which what serves as "stimulus" and what as "response" depends on how one views the
situation, and defends the unitary nature of the sensory motor circuit. While he does not deny
the existence of stimulus, sensation, and response, he disagreed that they were separate,
juxtaposed events happening like links in a chain. He put forward the idea that there is a
coordination by which the stimulus is enriched by the results of previous experiences. The
response is modulated thanks to sensorial experience. That is to say, the stimulus, sensation,
and response are phases in a "division of labor" as part of an overall coordination of action as
the human organism adapts to its environment.
Dewey, not without polemic, was elected president of the American Psychological
Association in 1899.

John Dewey's USA Stamp

In 1984, the American Psychological Association announced that Lillian Moller Gilbreth
(1878-1972) had become the first psychologist to be commemorated on a United States
postage stamp. However, psychologists Gary Brucato Jr. and John D. Hogan later made the
case that this distinction actually belonged to John Dewey, who had been celebrated on an
American stamp 17 years earlier. While some psychology historians consider Dewey more of
a philosopher than a bona fide psychologist,[5] the authors noted that Dewey was a founding
member of the A.P.A., served as the A.P.A.'s eighth President in 1899, and was the author of
an 1896 article on the reflex arc which is now considered a cornerstone of American
functional psychology.[6]
Dewey also expressed interest in work in the psychology of visual perception carried out by
Dartmouth research professor Adelbert Ames, Jr..
[edit] Pragmatism and instrumentalism
Although Dewey did not identify himself as a pragmatist per se, but instead referred to his
philosophy as "instrumentalism", he is considered one of the three central figures in
American pragmatism, along with Charles Sanders Peirce, who coined the term, and William
James, who popularized it. Dewey worked from strongly Hegelian influences, unlike James,
whose lineage was primarily British, drawing particularly on empiricist and utilitarian
thought.[7] Neither was Dewey so pluralist or relativist as James. He held that value was a
function not of whim nor purely of social construction, but a quality situated in events
("nature itself is wistful and pathetic, turbulent and passionate" (Experience and Nature)).
He also held that experimentation (social, cultural, technological, philosophical) could be
used as a relatively hard-and-fast arbiter of truth. For example, James felt that for many
people who lacked "over-belief" in religious concepts, human life was shallow and rather
uninteresting, and that while no one religious belief could be demonstrated as the correct one,
we are all responsible for taking the leap of faith and making a gamble on one or another
theism, atheism, monism, etc. Dewey, in contrast, while honoring the important role that
religious institutions and practices played in human life, rejected belief in any static ideal,
such as a theistic God. Dewey felt that only scientific method could reliably further human
good.
Of the idea of God, Dewey said, "it denotes the unity of all ideal ends arousing us to desire
and actions."[8]
As with the reemergence of progressive philosophy of education, Dewey's contributions to
philosophy as such (he was, after all, much more a professional philosopher than a thinker on
education) have also reemerged with the reassessment of pragmatism, beginning in the late
1970s, by thinkers like Richard Rorty, Richard J. Bernstein and Hans Joas.
Because of his process-oriented and sociologically conscious view of the world and
knowledge, he is sometimes seen as a useful alternative to both modern and postmodern ways
of thinking. Dewey's non-foundational approach pre-dates postmodernism by more than half
a century. Recent exponents (like Rorty) have not always remained faithful to Dewey's
original vision, though this itself is completely in keeping both with Dewey's own usage of
other thinkers and with his own philosophy— for Dewey, past doctrines always require
reconstruction in order to remain useful for the present time.
Dewey's philosophy has gone by many names other than "pragmatism". He has been called
an instrumentalist, an experimentalist, an empiricist, a functionalist, and a naturalist. The
term "transactional" may better describe his views, a term emphasized by Dewey in his later
years to describe his theories of knowledge and experience.
[edit] Epistemology
Main article: Knowing and the Known

The terminology problem in the fields of epistemology and logic is partially due, according to
Dewey and Bentley,[9] to inefficient and imprecise use of words and concepts that reflect three
historic levels of organization and presentation.[10] In the order of chronological appearance,
these are:
• Self-Action: Prescientific concepts regarded humans, animals, and things
as possessing powers of their own which initiated or caused their actions.
• Interaction: as described by Newton, where things, living and inorganic,
are balanced against something in a system of interaction, for example,
the third law of motion states that for every action there is an equal and
opposite reaction.
 • Transaction: where modern systems of descriptions and naming are
employed to deal with multiple aspects and phases of action without any
attribution to ultimate, final, or independent entities, essences, or realities.
A series of characterizations of Transactions indicate the wide range of considerations
involved.[11]
[edit] Logic and method
Dewey sees paradox in contemporary logical theory. Proximate subject matter garners
general agreement and advance, while the ultimate subject matter of logic generates
unremitting controversy. In other words, he challenges confident logicians to answer the
question of the truth of logical operators. Do they function merely as abstractions (e.g., pure
mathematics) or do they connect in some essential way with their objects, and therefore alter
or bring them to light? ("The Problem of Logical Subject Matter", in Logic: The Theory of
Inquiry {1938})
Logical positivism also figured in Dewey's thought. About the movement he wrote that it
"eschews the use of 'propositions' and 'terms', substituting 'sentences' and 'words'." ("General
Theory of Propositions", in Logic: The Theory of Inquiry) He welcomes this changing of
referents “in as far as it fixes attention upon the symbolic structure and content of
propositions.” However, he registers a small complaint against the use of “sentences” and
“words” in that without careful interpretation the act or process of transposition “narrows
unduly the scope of symbols and language, since it is not customary to treat gestures and
diagrams (maps, blueprints, etc.) as words or sentences.” In other words, sentences and
words, considered in isolation, do not disclose intent, which may be inferred or “adjudged
only by means of context.” (Ibid.)
Yet Dewey was not entirely opposed to modern logical trends. Concerning traditional logic,
he states: “Aristotelian logic, which still passes current nominally, is a logic based upon the
idea that qualitative objects are existential in the fullest sense. To retain logical principles
based on this conception along with the acceptance of theories of existence and knowledge
based on an opposite conception is not, to say the least, conductive to clearness – a
consideration that has a good deal to do with existing dualism between traditional and the
newer relational logics.” (Qualitative Thought {1930})
Louis Menand argues in The Metaphysical Club that Jane Addams had been critical of
Dewey's emphasis on antagonism in the context of a discussion of the Pullman strike of 1894.
In a later letter to his wife, Dewey confessed that Addams' argument was "the most
magnificent exhibition of intellectual & moral faith I ever saw. She converted me internally,
but not really, I fear.... When you think that Miss Addams does not think this as a philosophy,
but believes it in all her senses & muscles--Great God... I guess I'll have to give it [all] up &
start over again." He went on to add, "I can see that I have always been interpreting dialectic
wrong end up, the unity as the reconciliation of opposites, instead of the opposites as the
unity in its growth, and thus translated the physical tension into a moral thing... I don't know
as I give the reality of this at all,... it seems so natural & commonplace now, but I never had
anything take hold of me so."[12]
In a letter to Addams herself, Dewey wrote, clearly influenced by his conversation with her:
"Not only is actual antagonizing bad, but the assumption that there is or may be antagonism is
bad-- in fact, the real first antagonism always comes back to the assumption."
[edit] Aesthetics
Main article: Art as Experience

Art as Experience (1934) is Dewey's major writing on aesthetics. It is, according to his place
in the Pragmatist tradition that emphasizes community, a study of the individual art object as
embedded in (and inextricable from) the experiences of a local culture. See his Experience
and Nature for an extended discussion of 'Experience' in Dewey's philosophy.

[edit] On democracy
The overriding theme of Dewey's works was his profound belief in democracy, be it in
politics, education or communication and journalism. As Dewey himself put it in 1888, while
still at the University of Michigan, "Democracy and the one, ultimate, ethical ideal of
humanity are to my mind synonymous."[13]
With respect to technological developments in a democracy: "Persons do not become a
society by living in physical proximity any more than a man ceases to be socially influenced
by being so many feet or miles removed from others" -John Dewey from Andrew Feenberg's
"Community in the Digital Age"

[edit] On education
Main article: Democracy and Education

Dewey's educational theories were presented in "My Pedagogic Creed" (1897), The School
and Society (1900), The Child and Curriculum (1902), Democracy and Education (1916) and
Experience and Education (1938).
His recurrent and intertwining themes of education, democracy and communication are
effectively summed up in the following excerpt from the first chapter, "Education as a
Necessity of Life", of his 1916 book, Democracy and Education: an introduction to the
philosophy of education: "What nutrition and reproduction are to physiological life, education
is to social life. This education consists primarily in transmission through communication.
Communication is a process of sharing experience till it becomes a common possession."[14]
As well as his very active and direct involvement in setting up educational institutions such
as the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools (1896) and The New School for Social
Research (1919), many of Dewey's ideas influenced the founding of Bennington College in
Vermont, where he served on the Board of Trustees.
Dewey was a relentless campaigner for reform of education, pointing out that the
authoritarian, strict, pre-ordained knowledge approach of modern traditional education was
too concerned with delivering knowledge, and not enough with understanding students' actual
experiences.[15]
Dewey was the most famous proponent of hands-on learning or experiential education, which
is related to, but not synonymous with experiential learning. Dewey went on to influence
many other influential experiential models and advocates. Many researchers credit him with
the influence of Project Based Learning (PBL) which places students in the active role of
researchers.
Dewey's theories influenced many Chinese scholars including Hu Shih, Zhang Boling and
Tao Xingzhi while they studied under him in Columbia University. His opposition regarding
traditional education also had an impact on Mao Zedong.[4]

[edit] On journalism
Main article: The Public and its Problems

Since the mid-1980s, Deweyan ideas have experienced revival as a major source of
inspiration for the public journalism movement. Dewey's definition of "public," as described
in The Public and its Problems, has profound implications for the significance of journalism
in society. As suggested by the title of the book, his concern was of the transactional
relationship between publics and problems. Also implicit in its name, public journalism seeks
to orient communication away from elite, corporate hegemony toward a civic public sphere.
"The 'public' of public journalists is Dewey's public."[16]
Dewey gives a concrete definition to the formation of a public. Publics are spontaneous
groups of citizens who share the indirect effects of a particular action. Anyone affected by the
indirect consequences of a specific action will automatically share a common interest in
controlling those consequences, i.e., solving a common problem.[17]
Since every action generates unintended consequences, publics continuously emerge, overlap,
and disintegrate.
In The Public and its Problems, Dewey presents a rebuttal to Walter Lippmann’s treatise on
the role of journalism in democracy. Lippmann’s model was a basic transmission model in
which journalists took information given them by experts and elites, repackaged that
information in simple terms, and transmitted the information to the public, whose role was to
react emotionally to the news. In his model, Lippmann supposed that the public was
incapable of thought or action, and that all thought and action should be left to the experts
and elites.
Dewey refutes this model by assuming that politics is the work and duty of each individual in
the course of his daily routine. The knowledge needed to be involved in politics, in this
model, was to be generated by the interaction of citizens, elites, experts, through the
mediation and facilitation of journalism. In this model, not just the government is held
accountable, but the citizens, experts, other actors as well.
Dewey also revisioned journalism to fit this model by taking the focus from actions or
happenings and changing the structure to focus on choices, consequences, and conditions, in
order to foster conversation and improve the generation of knowledge in the community.
Journalism would not just produce a static product that told of what had already happened,
but the news would be in a constant state of evolution as the community added value by
generating knowledge. The audience would disappear, to be replaced by citizens and
collaborators who would essentially be users, doing more with the news than simply reading
it.
Dewey’s journalism was revolutionary because it changed the structure from choosing a
winner of a given situation to posing alternatives and exploring consequences. His effort to
change journalism, involve citizens, stimulation, was all under the auspices of creating the
Great Community he wrote of in The Public and its Problems: “Till the Great Society is
converted in to a Great Community, the Public will remain in eclipse. Communication can
alone create a great community” (Dewey, pg. 144).
Dewey believed that communication creates a great community, and citizens who actively
participate in public life contribute to that community. "The clear consciousness of a
communal life, in all its implications, constitutes the idea of democracy." (The Public and its
Problems, p. 149). This Great Community can only occur with "free and full
intercommunication." (p. 211) Communication can be understood as journalism - the
traditional forum in which people communicate.

[edit] On humanism
Dewey participated in a variety of humanist activities from the thirties into the fifties, which
included sitting on the advisory board of Charles Francis Potter's First Humanist Society of
New York (1929); being one of the original 34 signees of the first Humanist Manifesto (1933)
and being elected an honorary member of the Humanist Press Association (1936).[18]
His views on humanism are best summed in his own words from an article titled "What
Humanism Means to Me", published in the June 1930 edition of Thinker 2:
"What Humanism means to me is an expansion, not a contraction, of human life, an expansion in
which nature and the science of nature are made the willing servants of human good." — John
Dewey, "What Humanism Means to Me"[19]

[edit] Social and political activism

As a major advocate for academic freedom, in 1935 Dewey, together with Albert Einstein and
Alvin Johnson, became a member of the United States section of the International League for
Academic Freedom,[20] and in 1940, together with Horace M Kallen, edited a series of articles
related to the infamous Bertrand Russell Case.
As well as being highly active in defending the independence of the teaching community, and
opposing a communist take over of the New York Teacher's Union,[citation needed] Dewey was
involved in the organization that eventually became the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
He headed the famous Dewey Commission held in Mexico in 1938, and which cleared
Trotsky of the charges made against him by Stalin,[21] and marched for women's rights, among
many other causes.
In 1950, Dewey, together with Bertrand Russell, Benedetto Croce, Karl Jaspers, and Jacques
Maritain agreed to act as honorary chairman of the Congress for Cultural Freedom.[22]

[edit] Other interests

Dewey's interests and writings covered a wide range of subjects, and according to the
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "a substantial part of his published output consisted of
commentary on current domestic and international politics, and public statements on behalf
of many causes. (He is probably the only philosopher in this encyclopedia to have published
both on the Treaty of Versailles and on the value of displaying art in post offices.)"[23]
In 1918, Dewey met F. M. Alexander in New York City and went on to write the introduction
to Alexander's Constructive Conscious Control of the Inidividual (1923).[24]
As well as his contacts with people mentioned elsewhere in the article, he also maintained
correspondence with Henri Bergson, William M. Brown, Martin Buber, George S. Counts,
William Rainey Harper, Sidney Hook, and George Santayana.

[edit] Criticism
In his lifetime Dewey was the target of notable critics, including Randolph Bourne, a former
student of his, and Walter Lippmann, among others. Always at the forefront of the battle
between the traditional and progressive education of his day, he is today often criticized for
"what he did to our schools,"[citation needed] a catch-all phrase which never actually pinpoints any
specific criticism as it is not apparent that he really did anything directly to the schools, nor
even that he fully approved of much of what passed for progressivism.
Likewise, on the one hand, Dewey is held up as the epitome of liberalism by many
conservative pundits today (see The Closing of the American Mind), even being "portrayed as
dangerously radical" during the era of McCarthyism,[25] while on the other, quite a few on the
left find him too conservative by today's post-modern standards. Meanwhile, Dewey was
strongly critiqued by American communists because he took a stand against Stalinism and
had philosophical differences with Marx.
Other criticisms levelled at him include his war stances in both the First and the Second
World Wars, as well as, despite having been involved in the foundation of the NAACP, not
having written more directly against racism.[citation needed]
Another, albeit minor, source of criticism has been religion. While one biographer, Steven C.
Rockefeller, traced Dewey's firm democratic convictions to his childhood attendance at the
Congregational Church, with its strong proclamation of social ideals,[26] another, Edward A.
White, a Stanford University professor of history, suggested in Science and Religion in
American Thought (1952) that Dewey's work had led to the 20th century rift between religion
and science. However, in reviewing the book in The Quarterly Review of Biology (1954),
noted geneticist H. Bentley Glass openly wondered if the rift between religion and science
would have taken much the same course, even if there had not been a John Dewey.[27]

[edit] Academic awards

• Copernican Citation (1943)
• Doctor “honoris causa” – University of Oslo (1946)
• Doctor “honoris causa” – University of Pennsylvania (1946)
• Doctor “honoris causa” – Yale University (1951)
• Doctor “honoris causa” – University of Rome (1951)

[edit] Publications
Besides publishing prolifically himself, Dewey also sat on various boards of scientific
publications such as Sociometry (advisory board, 1942) and Journal of Social Psychology
(editorial board, 1942), as well as holding posts at other publications such as New Leader
(contributing editor, 1949).
The following publications by John Dewey are referenced or mentioned in this article. A
more complete list of his publications may be found at List of publications by John Dewey.
• "The New Psychology" Andover Review, 2, 278-289 (1884) [5]
• Psychology (1887)
• Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding (1888)
• "The Ego as Cause" Philosophical Review, 3,337-341. (1894) [6]
• "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology" (1896)
• "My Pedagogic Creed" (1897)
• The School and Society (1900)
• The Child and the Curriculum (1902) [7]
• "The Postulate of Immediate Empiricism" (1905)
• Moral Principles in Education (1909) The Riverside Press Cambridge Project
Gutenberg
• How We Think (1910)[8]
• Democracy and Education: an introduction to the philosophy of education
(1916) [9]
• Reconstruction in Philosophy (1919) [10]
• Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to Social Psychology
• Experience and Nature (1925)[11]
• The Public and its Problems (1927)
• The Quest for Certainty (1929)
 • Individualism Old and New (1930)[12]
• Philosophy and Civilization (1931)
• Ethics, second edition (with James Hayden Tufts) (1932)
• Art as Experience (1934)[13]
• A Common Faith (1934)
• Liberalism and Social Action (1935)
• Experience and Education (1938)
• Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (1938)
• Freedom and Culture (1939)
• Knowing and the Known (1949) (with Arthur Bentley) Full copy in pdf file
available from the American Institute for Economic Research
See also
• The Essential Dewey: Volumes 1 and 2. Edited by Larry Hickman and
Thomas Alexander. (1998). Indiana University Press.
• The Philosophy of John Dewey. Edited by John J. McDermott. (1981).
University of Chicago Press.
Dewey's Complete Writings is available in 3 multi-volume sets (37 volumes in all) from
Southern Illinois University Press:
• The Early Works: 1892-1898 (5 volumes)
• The Middle Works: 1899-1924 (15 volumes)
• The Later Works: 1925-1953 (17 volumes)
The Correspondence of John Dewey is available on CD-ROM in 3 volumes.

[edit] Works about Dewey

• Alexander, Thomas. John Dewey's Theory of Art, Experience, and Nature
(1987)[14]. SUNY Press.
• Boisvert, Raymond. John Dewey: Rethinking Our Time. (1997)[15]. SUNY
Press.
• Campbell, James. Understanding John Dewey: Nature and Cooperative
Intelligence. (1995) Open Court Publishing Company.
• Caspary, William R. Dewey on Democracy. (2000). Cornell University Press.
• Good, James (2006). A Search for Unity in Diversity: The “Permanent
Hegelian Deposit” in the Philosophy of John Dewey. Lexington Books. ISBN
9780739110614.
• Hickman, Larry A. John Dewey's Pragmatic Technology. (1992) Indiana
University Press.
• Hook, S. John Dewey: An Intellectual Portrait (1939)
• Kannegiesser, H. J. "Knowledge and Science" (1977) The Macmillan
Company of Australia PTY Ltd
• Martin, Jay. The Education of John Dewey. (2003)[16]. Columbia University
Press.
 • Pring, Richard (2007). John Dewey: Continuum Library of Educational
Thought. Continuum. ISBN 0-8264-8403-4.
• Rockefeller, Stephen. John Dewey: Religious Faith and Democratic
Humanism. (1994)[17]. Columbia University Press
• Rogers, Melvin. The Undiscovered Dewey: Religion, Morality, and the Ethos
of Democracy. (2008). Columbia University Press. [18]
• Roth, Robert J. John Dewey and Self-Realization. (1962). Prentice Hall.
• Ryan, Alan. John Dewey and the High Tide of American Liberalism.
(1995)[19]. W.W. Norton.
• Seigfried, Charlene Haddock, (ed.). Feminist Interpretations of John Dewey
(2001)[20]. Penn State University Press.
• Shook, John. Dewey's Empirical Theory of Knowledge and Reality.
(2000)[21][. The Vanderbilt Library of American Philosophy
• Sleeper, R.W. The Necessity of Pragmatism: John Dewey's Conception of
Philosophy. Introduction by Tom Burke. (2001) [22].University of Illinois
Press.
• Westbrook, Robert B. John Dewey and American Democracy. (1991)[23].
Cornell University Press.
• White, Morton. The Origin of Dewey's Instrumentalism. (1943). Columbia
University Press.

[edit] References
1. ^ Violas, Paul C.; Tozer, Steven; Senese, Guy B.. School and Society:
Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social
Sciences/Languages. p. 121. ISBN 0-07-298556-9.
2. ^ Gutek, Gerald L.. Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Education:
A Biographical Introduction.. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education
Inc.. pp. 338. ISBN 0-13-113809-X.
3. ^ New York Times edition of January 19, 1953, page 27
4. ^ Field, Richard. John Dewey in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Northwest Missouri State University http://www.iep.utm.edu/d/dewey.htm
Retrieved 08/29/2008.
5. ^ Benjamin, L.T. (2003). "Why Can't Psychology Get a Stamp?" Journal of
applied psychoanalytic studies 5(4):443-454.
6. ^ Brucato, G. & Hogan, J.D. (1999, Spring). "Psychologists on postage
stamps" The General Psychologist, 34(1):65
7. ^ Good (2006). A Search for Unity in Diversity: The "Permanent Hegelian
Deposit" in the Philosophy of John Dewey. Lexington Books.
8. ^ A Common Faith, p. 42 (LW 9:29).
9. ^ John Dewey, Arthur Bentley, (1949). Knowing and the Known. Beacon
Press, Boston.
10.^ ibid. p107-109
11.^ ibid. p121-139
12.^ Louis Menand. The Metaphysical Club p. 313
 13.^ Early Works, 1:128 (Southern Illinois University Press) op cited in
Douglas R. Anderson, AAR, The Journal of the American Academy of
Religion, Vol. 61, No. 2 (1993), p. 383
14.^ Dewey, J. Democracy and Education: an introduction to the philosophy
of education. Chapter 1: Education as a Necessity of Life
15.^ Neil, J. (2005) "John Dewey, the Modern Father of Experiential
Education". Wilderdom.com. Retrieved 6/12/07.
16.^ Heikkilä, H. and Kunelius, R. 2002. "Public Journalism and Its Problems:
A Theoretical Perspective",
http://www.imdp.org/artman/publish/article_30.shtml
17.^ Dewey, J. 1927. The Public and its Problems. Henry Holt & Co., New York.
pp 126.
18.^ "John Dewey Chronology" 1934.04.08, 1936.03.12, 1940.09, and
1950.09.11.
19.^ Italics in the original. "What Humanism Means to Me," first published in
Thinker 2 (June 1930): 9-12, as part of a series. Dewey: Page lw.5.266 [The
Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882-1953, The Electronic Edition]
20.^ American Institute of Physics [1]
21.^ "Dewey Commission Report"
22.^ "Origins of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, 1949-1950" CIA official
web site
23.^ "Dewey's Political Philosophy" Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
24.^ F. M. Alexander Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual, E. P.
Dutton & Co., 1923 ISBN 0-913111-11-2
25.^ Caspary, William R. Dewey on Democracy. (2000) Cornell University
Press. Ithaca, NY.
26.^ Rockefeller, Stephen. John Dewey: Religious Faith and Democratic
Humanism. (1994)[13]. Columbia University Press
27.^ Bentley Glass, The Quarterly Review of Biology Vol. 29, No. 3 (Sep.,
1954), pp. 249-250

[edit] See also

• John Dewey Society
• Center for Dewey Studies
• Democratic education
• Academy at Charlemont
• The Bertrand Russell Case
• Dewey Commission
• Education reform
• Inquiry-based Science
• Laboratory school
• Learning by teaching
[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: John Dewey

Wikisource has original works written by or about:

John Dewey

Wikiversity has learning materials about John Dewey

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: John Dewey

• Center for Dewey Studies

• John Dewey Society
• Works by John Dewey at Project Gutenberg
• Another biography with easier readability
• Excerpts from Experience and Nature (pdf file)
• Impressions of Soviet Russia
• Small site on John Dewey
• John Dewey Papers at Southern Illinois University Carbondale
• John Dewey Chronology at Southern Illinois University
• Information about John Dewey and F. Mathias Alexander
• John Dewey: His Life and Work 4-minute clip from a documentary film used
primarily in higher education.
• More information about John Dewey and F. Mathias Alexander
• Article on Dewey's Moral Philosophy in Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy
• Article on Dewey's Political Philosophy in Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy
• Dewey page from Pragmatism Cybrary
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy at Northwest Missouri State
University
[show]
v • d • e
 Standards-based education reform

[show]
v • d • e

Philosophy of science

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey"

Categories: 1859 births | 1952 deaths | 20th-century philosophers | Alternative
education | American philosophers | Educational psychologists | American
educationists | American humanists | Religious naturalists | American political
theorists | American psychologists | Functionalist psychologists | Pragmatists |
Columbia University faculty | University of Chicago faculty | University of
Michigan faculty | Johns Hopkins University alumni | People from Vermont |
Vermont culture | Philosophers of science | Philosophers of art | University of
Vermont alumni | American Federation of Teachers | Western writers about Soviet
Russia

Hidden categories: All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with

unsourced statements from August 2008 | Articles with unsourced statements
from May 2009
Views
• Article
• Discussion
• Edit this page
• History
Personal tools
• Log in / create account
Navigation
• Main page
• Contents
 • Featured content
• Current events
• Random article
Search

Special:Search Go Search

Interaction
• About Wikipedia
• Community portal
• Recent changes
• Contact Wikipedia
• Donate to Wikipedia
• Help
Toolbox
• What links here
• Related changes
• Upload file
• Special pages
• Printable version
• Permanent link
• Cite this page
Languages
• ‫العربية‬
• Asturianu
• Bosanski
• Български
• Català
• Česky
• Dansk
• Deutsch
• Español
• Esperanto
• Français
• Galego
• 한국어
• Hrvatski
• Interlingua
• Íslenska
• Italiano
• ‫עברית‬
• ქართული
• Latviešu
• Lietuvių
• Magyar
• Nederlands
• 日本語
• Norsk (bokmål)
• Piemontèis
• Polski
• PortuguÍs
• Română
• Русский
• Simple English
• Slovenčina
• Српски / Srpski
• Suomi
• Svenska
• ไทย
• Türkçe
• 中文

• This page was last modified on 27 June 2009 at 19:03.

• Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike
License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of Use for details.
Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a
non-profit organization.
• Privacy policy
• About Wikipedia
• Disclaimers