Philosophy of John Dewey

John Dewey
Born: October 20, 1859  Burlington, Vermont, United States   Died:June 1, 1952 (aged 92)  New York City, United States  Alma mater: University of Vermont  Johns Hopkins University  Era: 20th-century philosophy  School: Pragmatism  Institutions: University of Michigan  University of Chicago  University of Chicago Laboratory Schools  Columbia University  Main interests: Philosophy of education,  epistemology,  journalism, ethics  Notable: ideas Reflective thinking American Association of University  Professors Immediate empiricism  Inquiry into Moscow show trials about  Trotsky Educational progressivism    Influences:     • Plato                         • Locke                             • Rousseau                      • Kant                         • Hegel                            • Darwin                           • Peirce                                       • William James                         • Ladd                         • Mead                            • George                         • Ward                           • Wundt                           • Parker           Influenced: Veblen                                      • B.R. Ambedkar                               • Santayana                          • Kaplan                            • Hu Shih                         • Hook                           • Greene                                        • Richard McKeon                           • Putnam                            • Chomsky                            • Habermas                       • Rorty                       • West                      • Park                               • Durkheim                                           • Herbert Schneider
*Mr. Dewey believed that the core curriculum should  encompass the students' interests. *John Dewey approached education with a hands-on,  cohesive philosophy, rather than teaching isolated topics which  prevented learners from grasping the whole of knowledge. *Pragmatism is the philosophy of considering practical  consequences or real effects to be vital components of  both meaning and truth. *One important aspect is fallibilism *Fallibilism is the philosophical doctrine that all claims of knowledge could,in principle,  be mistaken. Some fallibilists go futher,  arguing that absolute certainly about knowledge is impossible. *Dewey did not consider himself a pragmatist,  but rather referred to his philosophy as Instumentalism. *Instrumentalism:concepts and theories are measured as useful,  not by whether they are true or false,  but by explaining and predicting phenomena. *Students need to learn practical,  pragmatic daily-life skills in order to build a better society. *Dewey wanted students to learn through experience  and to think and reflect critically on their experiences. EXAMPLES: *Math could be learned by cooking,  traveling, building things. *History could be learned by  experiencing field trips, museums, replicas. *Reading can be learned through  independently-selected literature. Current Day Evidence of this Theory *Vocational Technical School *Use of Scientific Method in classrooms *Kinesthetic Learning  ( Role Playing, Non-Traditional learning techniques) *Integrating Technology into lessons
In my opinion as a Future educator I will choose  the philosophy of John Dewey because in his theory  he believed that human beings learn through a 'hands-on'  approach that reality must be experienced because in reality,  we only give attention to those things that is interesting for us.  And I also believed that we learn through our different experiences.