This document outlines the key principles of pragmatism and progressivism in education as espoused by John Dewey. It advocates that education should focus on how to think rather than what to think, and should be a process of living rather than preparation for life. Schools should foster habits of thought and initiative to help students reach their potential. Pragmatism emphasizes learning through experience and problem-solving. Progressivism criticizes traditional practices like rote memorization and advocates student-centered, experiential, and project-based learning.

1. PRAGMATISM/PROGRE
SSIVISM
“Emphasis upon how to think rather than what to think”
“Education should be life itself, not a preparation for living”

2. AIM OF EDUCATION
Since growth is the characteristic of life, education
is all one with growing; it has no end beyond itself
Freedom and responsibility

3. SCHOOLS SHOULD…
Foster habits of thought, invention, and
initiative that will assist people in becoming
all they can be

4. Roots
Pragmatism
• work
Progressivism
• development

5. Era of Reform
• Scientific revolution
• Industrial revolution
• Civil rights
• Election
• Questioning attitudes fostered by the Enlightenment
• Naturalistic humanism
• Idealism vs. Realism

6. Criticized Traditional School Practices
• Authoritarian teacher
• Exclusive reliance on bookish methods of instruction
• Passive learning by memorization of factual data
• Four-walls philosophy of education that attempted to
isolate education from social reality
• The use of fear or physical punishment as a form of
disciplines

7. PROGRESSIVE
EDUCATION…
was both a movement within the broad framework of
American education and a theory that urged the liberation
of the child from the traditional emphasis on rote
learning, lesson recitations, and book authority.

8. John Dewey
1859 – 1951
Born in Burlington,
Vermont
Died because of hip
fracture
Parents:
Archibald Sprague
Dewey
Lucina Artemesia Rich
Birth Order: 3rd of 4
Siblings

9. 1879 – graduated from University of Vermont
1880-1884
HS teacher for 2 yrs at Oil City, PA
Elem teacher for 1 yr at Charlotte, Vermont
Received his PhD from Johns Hopkins University (1884)
1884-1894
Instructor & Assistant Professor of Philosophy at University of
Michigan
1894 – 1904 (University of Chicago)
Head of Department of Philosophy
Two (2) years Director, School of Education
1896-1904
Laboratory School in University of Chicago
1904-1930
Department of Philosophy at Columbia University
1941
Approved 6-year experiment for progressive method of education

10. • One of the nation’s intellectual giants
• Chief spokesman for the progressivists movement.
• Democracy and Education (1916) is perhaps the single
most important book on education ever published in his
country
• Dewey was a social activist.
• He campaigned for democratic education and schooling,
and for causes such as women’s right to vote, welfare,
and teacher’s tenure.
• He was a firm believer in teachers’ organization.

11. Nature and Experience
• Nature and experience are not two different things; rather,
experience itself is of nature

12. METHODS OF
EDUCATION

13. • Various methods are needed, because there is no single
way to educate.
• Movable child-sized desks
• Large print in books for small children

14. • All knowledge is
related.
• Broad education

15. Problem-solving
• Real-life situations
encourage problem-solving
ability in a
practical setting.
• Education should be
experimental.
• new things to learn
• different things to
experience

17. Two-fold value
• An important piece of
knowledge is learned
• The skills of inquiry
and self-sufficiency are
developed, which will
benefit individuals for
years to come

18. • “Project-approach” by
Kilpatrick
• group learning
• Projects should be
chosen by students as
much as possible
through individual and
group discussion.

19. CURRICULUM

20. • Knowledge and
experience are
inseparable.

21. • There should be no
gap between child’s
area of interest and
important subject
matter.

22. • There should be focus
on process because
ends should not be
divorced from means.
• When one views what
a child learns as fixed
and ready made,
attention is directed
too much on outcome.

23. • Diversified curriculum
• Problem-centered
activities
• Attacks the problem in
diverse ways according
to their interests and
needs
• Traditional disciplines
are not ignored but
are used for a
knowledge background
of the problem.

24. Evaluation of students
• All questions of the grading of the child and his promotion
should be determined by reference to the SAME
STANDARD.
• Examinations are of use ONLY so far as they test the
child’s fitness for social life and reveal the place in which
he can be of the most service and where he can receive
the most help.

25. ROLE OF THE
TEACHER

26. DANGER!
Formal education can be abstract and
remote from students’ actual life
experiences

27. Therefore…
• Constant attention must be given to linking life
experiences with other experiences.
…This is where the TEACHER’S ROLE becomes crucial.

28. Training is not the same thing as
education
• Children can be trained through behavioral conditioning to
like or avoid things without understanding why they
should do so.
• Most habits of animals are the result of training, but
humans, unlike horses, have a wider range of
understanding and can act on that understanding.

29. HOW?

30. TEACHERS SHOULD
SERVE AS…
Knowledgeable guides and resources for
students, not as taskmasters who just drill
students in subject matter.

31. Pragmatists believe that children have an
inherent motivation to learn, and that
the teacher should capture and use the
motivation that already exists.

32. TEACHER SHOULD…
establish a proper learning environment in
order to STIMULATE desired intellectual and
emotional growth among students

33. Example
• Using their interest
as their starting
point, students find
that textiles are an
enduring feature of
human history.

34. TEACHERS SHOULD…
promote an active role for students
“focus on learner, not the subject”

35. However…
• Teachers must
understand that all
children are NOT at
the same point and
CANNOT be educated
in the same way.

36. Critique of Progressivism in
Education

37. • Using education to
shape a pluralistic
society without due
regard for unique
cultural differences

38. • Lowered standards in
public education

39. • Many educators felt that their approach to education was
not rigorous enough; that we needed to get back to
the “basics”
• Misinterpretation; an occasional lack of specificity in
pragmatism makes it difficult to apply
• Permissiveness
• Deprecates the acquisition of knowledge and waters
down the curriculum by taking a piece of this and a bit of
that discipline without ever fully exploring either in depth,
catering to students’ interests and slighting the basic
disciplines they need

40. Because…
• Some progressive reforms were sometimes implemented
too hastily and without adequate preparation of teaching
staffs.
• Some reformers did not completely grasp the essential
ideas of the changes to be made.
• Dewey’s name often was invoked but his works seldom
studied, and many progressive zealots took his ideas out
of context.
• Some educators have interpreted Dewey to mean that the
intellectual and cognitive sides of education are
unimportant.

41. FACT!!!
• Dewey placed intelligence and thinking in a central
position in his philosophy.
• Though… He thought that intelligence is developed in
purposeful activity dealing with problems and arriving
at solutions.
• He DID NOT ignore books, subject matter, and the need
for periodic drill.
• He simply rejected the assertion that these are the most
important things in education.

42. TRIVIA!
• Pragmatism/progressive education was identified with
radical social reform.
• For many educators, it was detrimental to associate
pragmatist ideas into conservative and traditional schools.
…In as sense, therefore, elements of pragmatism came in through
back doors of schools, and this factor helps explain why pragmatist
ideas and methods often are used (and misused) but are not always
identified with the philosophy of pragmatism.

43. • Rejects traditional
values in favor of
values that are
uncertain,
changeable, and
impermanent

44. FACT!!!
• Pragmatists, such as Dewey, DID NOT believe that
traditional ideas and values should be rejected out-of-hand
but should be carefully studied.
…one cannot afford to rely only on hand-me-down values and
that people should be seeking new ideas and values in
every area of human activity

45. • It supports the idea that schools should maintain an
experimental approach to learning.
…and what such critics fail to realize
• This does NOT mean that ideas and methods, no matter
how ancient in origin, are to be scrapped automatically.
• New ideas and methods should be developed and
implemented when they help to better solve perplexing
human problems

46. • The type of educator
needed for progressive
education needed to be
exceptional, that is,
extremely capable and
highly educated in
several disciplines.
• It is doubtful that a
sufficient number of such
persons could be prepared
and retained today,
particularly considering the
level of financial outlay
society seems willing to
provide for education.

47. PRAGMATISM/PROGRE
SSIVISM…
does not mean that valuable traditions are to be
disrespected or discarded; rather, it means that we must
learn to solve pressing problems intelligently, rather
than rely mindlessly on traditions.