The document discusses John Dewey's influential thoughts on education, emphasizing the importance of experiential learning, democracy, and the role of the teacher as a guide. Dewey argued for a curriculum that evolves from students' interests and experiences, advocating for a broader educational approach that includes moral, aesthetic, and practical education. His progressive philosophy has significantly shaped modern educational practices and the concept of the active learner in a democratic society.

1. KUVEMPU UNIVERSITY
Department of P.G. Studies and Research in Education
Jnana Sahyadri, Shankaraghatta 577451, Shivamogga, Karnataka, India.
Subject :Curriculum development at secondary education and higher secondary
education
Seminar : Educational thoughts of “JOHN DEWEY”
Submitted To Submitted By
Mr. Balachandra Madiwal Shruthi B .R
Faculty Member 3rd semester, M,ed
Department of education Department of Education
Kuvempu University Kuvempu University

3. INTRODUCTION:
• John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose
thoughts have great influence in education and social reform. ‘
• He was born in 1859 and died in 1952. Dewey is best known for his writings on
education.
• He was one of the early developers of pragmatism and functional psychology. John Dewey's
thoughts have influenced all realms of educational fields. His pragmatism and laboratory
schools are the examples of his greatest contribution.
• Dewey is the most important single force in the progressive educational movement.
Building on various reforms he had been initiated and formed a new philosophy of
learning and logic of thinking.

4. • John Dewey ideas about Education and Society.
A) Education and Democracy
• John Dewey considered two principal elements to be fundamental in strengthening
democracy, namely schools and civil society. According to Dewey, it is not enough to extend the
voting rights. It is of paramount importance to form public opinion through education as
well. The aim is to ensure effective communication among citizens, experts, and politicians. The
latter must be accountable for the policies they adopt.
B) John Dewey and Education:
• Along with Jean Piaget, John Dewey was one of the first major contemporaries to develop a clear
idea of what constructivism consists of. He was concerned with the learner. He wanted to shed light
on the learner as an important agent in the learning process. He had precise insight regarding
hoe education should take place within the classroom.

5. C) John Dewey's Philosophy of Education:
• Dewey defines education as the ' development of all those capacities in the individual which
will enable him to control his environment and fulfill his possibilities". It is a process that
begins with the very birth of the child, and goes on throughout the whole life. It is a process,
which has two sides- one psychological and the other sociological.

6. • The main aims of education as advocated by Dewey are
• 1. Education leads towards Social efficiency
• 2. Education is life and life is education
• 3. Education is experience
• 4. Education should combine theory & practice
• 5. Education is a process of growth
• 6. Experience as the base of philosophy

7. Dewey on School Curriculum of Education:
• Dewey advocates that broader curricular programs are needed and emphasis should be placed
in the total development of the person as being equally important as the intellectual and the
academic.
•The teacher is a guide and director he steers the boat, but the energy that people it must
come from those who are learning. The more a teacher is aware of the experience of students
of their hopes, desires, chief interests the better will be.
• The teacher is engaged not simply in the training of individuals but in the formation
of the proper social life. In this way, the teacher always is the prophet of the true God.

8. Dewey’s curriculum is not mere scheme of studies, not a list of subjects. It is an entire range of
activities and experiences. He does not recommend any readymade curriculum. He rather wants the
curriculum to grow out of the student’s impulses, interest and experiences. Curriculum should
consists of educative experiences and problems. Only those experiences are educative which pay due
regard to the natural inclinations of the child in the context of social, political and economic
conditions of the society.
Sciences, Social Sciences, Occupational Education, Craft Education.
Dewey did not omit aesthetic, moral and religious education in the curriculum. He does not want to
give such education through lessons but by practical experience. “A religion can be realized itself
only through science, without science, religion is bound to be forma, hypocritical and a mass of
dogmas”.

9. Dewey's Method of Teaching and Learning:
John Dewey is quite against the traditional methods of teaching. He emphasizes direct
experience as the basis of all methods. To him knowledge should arise from concrete and
meaningful situations. Concrete and meaningful situations should provide knowledge to
the learner. Learning if it is to be moral and sound must come as a result of the normal
experiences of the child. Dewey considers mind as a product of activity and develops
through activity.
He advocated a number of methods of teaching and learning. Dewey recommended projects
to be used as teaching techniques.
1. Project Method
2. Activity Method

10. Dewey's contribution to educational thought and practice
(1) Dewey's social theory of education coupled with the logic of experimental method has been very influential
in the development of modern education practices.
(2) The greatest change has been in the recognition of the worth of the expense of the child. The child is no
longer regarded as a passive subject meant for the imposition of external information but is considered an active
living being those interests have to best emulated by participation in socially significant experience.
(3) Dewey has been one of the significant leaders who have tried to introduce a more human touch in the
processes of education.
(4) He has been a powerful influence in interpreting the school as a commonly for the realization of the
significance of the immediate experiences and present opportunities of the child if he is to be a contributor to the
march of the social process.
(5) His insistence on activities of diverse kinds in school is also another aspect of his social theory of education.

11. Discipline:
• In the opinion of Dewey, Children are individuals whose freedom should be respected. Then
education emphasizes the freedom of the learner and aims at greater attention to distinctive individual
needs. Hence they are provided by a great degree of freedom of action and discussion. According to
him if, in a school, children are given opportunities of working as per there interest, there will be no
problem of discipline. Standard for discipline is not how silent a classroom is or how few and
uniform the kinds of tools and material that are being used, but the mount of quality work by the
individuals and the group.
Concept of Values:
• In the opinion of Dewey, “values are as unstable as the forms of clouds. They keep on changing from
time to time and reality is still in the process of making. Ideal end are remotely connected with
immediate and urgent conditions. Man naturally devotes themselves to the present conditions than the
remote.

12. • Conclusion
• The tradition of John Dewey has observed along with the contribution and works of a
uthors in the field of education. Dewey’s Pragmatism, in spirit it is naturalistic, in method it
is scientific and practical, in purpose it is social and human. It strongly believe in the
reality of change over permanence, the relativity of values, the social and biological nature
of man, the importance of democracy as a way of life, the value of critical intelligence in all
human conduction, social virtues are of great importance to John Dewey. In the end
Dewey’s philosophy variously termed as experimentalism, functionalism, and
instrumentalism. Operationalism, progressivism, practicalism and above all pragmatism.

13. • REFERENCES:
• 1. Aggarwal. J.C. (1972). Educational Philosophers and thinkers. New Delhi: Arya Book
depot.
• 2. https://www.scribd.com/document/628756694/Contribution-of-John-Dewey-to-Education