Key concept of J. Dewey's philosophy. John Dewey finished report
John Dewey (1859-1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist and educator, a prominent representative of pragmatism (from the Greek pragma - action, action; philosophy of action), the leading direction in philosophy and pedagogy in the United States of America. Pragmatists recognize benefit as a criterion of truth, and the significance of benefit is determined by the feeling of “internal satisfaction” or “self-satisfaction.” Dewey's ideas had a great influence on school and preschool education in America and other countries, and were part of the “new education” movement.
BIOGRAPHY
John Dewey was born on October 20, 1859 in the city of Burlington, in the small northern state of Vermont, in the family of a tobacco manufacturer. After graduating from high school, he began studying at the University of Vermont in the liberal arts program. He studied philosophy with particular passion under the guidance of Professor Torey, who taught a course in the philosophy of ethics. After graduating from university, Dewey taught from 1879-1881 at a private high school in Oil City (Pennsylvania), where his cousin was the principal. While working at school, John continued his intensive studies in philosophy. In 1881 he submitted his first article, "The Metaphysical Perception of Materialism," to the Journal of Philosophy, around which the St. Louis Philosophical Society was grouped. The article was favorably received, published, and its author was recommended to continue his philosophical research. This determined Dewey's final choice of life path - he decided to become a philosopher.
Graduated from the University of Vermont (1879). He was a professor at the University of Michigan, Chicago and Columbia (1904-1930). In 1919 he became one of the founders of the New School for Social Research in New York. He headed the League of Independent Political Action.
Dewey developed a new version of pragmatism - instrumentalism, and developed a pragmatist methodology in the field of logic and theory of knowledge.
Dewey “rejected the idea of a first impulse and considered the search for the root cause of all things to be meaningless. The central concept in Dewey’s philosophy is the concept of experience - everything that is in human consciousness, both innate and acquired” (Dewey’s empiricism).
“The purpose of philosophy, according to Dewey, is to help a person, in the flow of experience, move towards a set goal and achieve it.” According to Dewey, the main task of philosophy is not “to achieve individual goals, using experience correctly, but to, with the help of philosophy to transform experience itself, systematically improve experience in all areas human life».
Already in his first work, “My Pedagogical Credo (1897), Dewey, starting from the pragmatic ideas of W. James, the founder of the philosophy of pragmatism, sharply criticized the contemporary school of “study for isolation from life and demanded radical changes in the content and methods of teaching.
Dewey acted as a theorist of the bourgeois school, which rejected any class isolation and was open to everyone at all levels. His proposals for restructuring the education system reflected the demands of the bourgeoisie of the era of imperialism, when agrarian-industrial America was turning into a powerful industrial power that entered into the struggle for colonies and for global supremacy in all spheres of economic life. “The industrial world with its improved machines required more competent workers who could adapt to changing production conditions and had greater knowledge and work skills. In America, as in other countries, the problem of labor training has arisen. Manual labor was introduced into the curricula of secondary, secondary and primary schools; The first practical manuals on labor education appeared. At the same time, one of the demands of the growing labor movement was the demand for universal education, improvement of the material base of schools for the children of workers, and inclusion of scientific knowledge in school curricula. Under these conditions, Dewey advocated for a school that would strengthen bourgeois democracy and class peace. He formulated new principles and rules of the educational process, which rehabilitated the policy of the bourgeoisie in the field of public education. Dewey's pedagogical views were based on the subjective-idealistic philosophy of pragmatism, the theory of innate instincts and the immutability of human biological nature.
According to Dewey's method, work was carried out in an experimental elementary school at the University of Chicago, organized in 1896, where children from 4 to 13 years old were educated, and in several other schools. Considering kindergartens to be institutions where “the foundation of all subsequent school life” is laid, Dewey also organized experimental work with young children.
Based on the tenets of pragmatism and his ideas about the importance of instincts in personality development, Dewey based work in preschool institutions on play, in school on work, on the activities of children. The typical picture of life in institutions that worked according to Dewey’s method differed sharply from the traditional one: children in groups and individually freely occupied themselves with their toys in kindergarten, and at school with their “businesses.” Dewey wrote that in such an environment, children no longer passively perceive reality and knowledge, but creatively approach their work in workshops at school: “ten-, twelve-, thirteen-year-old boys and girls spin, weave and sew.” This organization of education corresponded to the main thing. the principle of pragmatic pedagogy - “teach by doing”. After all, pragmatism places experience above all else and recognizes practice as a criterion. The only reality, according to Dewey, personal experience person. Dewey is alien to the concept of social practice; by practice he meant only the needs, aspirations and interests of the individual.
Thinking, according to Dewey, “serves personal experience and is a biological ability that arises as a means of practical struggle for “survival”, for the most successful adaptation to the environment. Ideas that arise when solving specific life problems are a “tool”, a “key” that opens the “lock (the task that has arisen), these “tools” - ideas have value only if they are useful to the individual. This is how the idea of a school of “doing” appeared, the task of which, first of all, is to prepare for personal success in the struggle of life.
The purpose of organizing children's activities, according to Dewey, is not for children to learn about reality, the properties and relationships of objects and phenomena, but for them to act in the most appropriate way to adapt to the environment, select the means and ways to most successfully overcome emerging obstacles, and accumulate experience. and corresponding knowledge. Dewey made the activities of children the center around which “scientific activities are grouped, providing information about the materials for them and the processes of their processing.”
Dewey ignored the need for systematic study of academic subjects. This was almost absent from his schools. The educational process was structured as imparting individual knowledge to children (in a complex) to “serve narrowly practical and utilitarian goals facing them.
A school teacher and a kindergarten teacher, Dewey believed, should not plan in advance the process of working with children. “The teacher should teach children how to use tools, how to carry out known processes, but not according to some preconceived plan, but as something is required for work.” “In educational communication, the initiative belongs to the student even more than in trading to the buyer,” wrote Dewey.
Preaching the theory of innate abilities, Dewey formulated the role of the educator as follows: “The child is constantly active and himself gives rise to the abilities inherent in him. The role of the educator comes down to giving the right direction to his activities.”
Dewey eliminated from the pedagogical process all the forms, methods and means of direct influence on children invented by Froebel, and developed the theory and methodology of indirect influences, which he gave a large role in the educational process. “The teacher must know,” he wrote, “what forces tend to develop in a certain period of the child’s development and what type of activity will help their expression, only then will he be able to provide the necessary stimuli and materials.”
Dewey briefly expressed the essence of his methodology in the following words: “Education must be based on the original and independent existence of innate abilities; it’s about directing them, not creating them.”
The development of young children, Dewey believed, is most conducive to play. “Like Froebel, he viewed this activity as prompted by instinct, at the same time he criticized Froebel’s symbolism, argued that children love to play with a ball, in circular games, not because “the circle is a symbol of infinity and should awaken the potential in the child’s soul.” the concept of infinity that exists there,” but because it is convenient for them.
Dewey argued that children do not need systematic knowledge as it disperses their attention and put forward individual themes taken from life, which children strive to reproduce in imaginary form. They begin, Dewey believed, by depicting in activities, games, drawings, etc. what they themselves see in home life, then discover its connections with the environment. These ideas of theirs gradually unfold in separate parts of the theme, coming to the fore at different times. “By recreating one and the same way of life, the child works in one thing, giving its various phases, clear and defined, and connecting them in a logical order with each other.” In this way, he develops a “sense of consistency.”
Dewey's pragmatic pedagogy became official in the United States; it was the basis for the work of schools. Its practical consequences turned out to be very negative. It turned out that students in US schools are significantly behind their peers in European countries in their knowledge, as a result of which American educators and members of the public sharply criticized this system.
However, the pragmatic theory of John Dewey as a justification for lack of spirituality, business, private enterprise and the desire to achieve personal success at any cost, characteristic of the American way of thought and life, continues to exist in school practice in a somewhat updated form, which was given to it by Dewey's followers.
Pedagogical theory of John Dewey. (Instrumental)
1. Experience is superior to systematized knowledge. Experience is closely related to performing actions rather than learning about objects. Thinking becomes a tool for solving mental problems. Its appearance promotes mental activity aimed at finding effective solutions to problems that impede the normal functioning of the body. J. Dewey believed that learning should occur through experiential knowledge. Only when studying the world around him will a child develop a desire for further knowledge. Through knowledge of reality, a child develops a character trait in which it becomes possible to control what is happening around him and adapt reality to his interests. J. Dewey pointed out that all previous general education systems were designed to transmit to students a huge amount of general information without applying it in practice. Figuratively speaking, students are taught by the experiences of the past, but are not prepared for the problems of the future. To replace the traditional education system, Dewey introduced a concept whose goal was to teach problem solving. In his opinion, a person who has the ability to make decisions will be better prepared for life with its many difficulties.
2. What is valuable is what brings practical results. According to the theory of J. Dewey, education and training are carried out not through the assimilation of theory, but in the process of performing practical tasks in which students not only study the world, but also learn to work in a team. Then the school will raise children who are perfectly adapted to living conditions. In schools created on the basis of instrumental pedagogy, there was no specific program with a system of subjects studied, and only the knowledge that could be found was selected practical use in life. Dewey considered history and geography to be the most important scientific disciplines, since they are closely related to nature and the social life of society.
3. The interests of the child are the basis of the educational process. The interests of the child should be used, guiding them on the right path, which can bear fruit. It is not an abstract program, but a specific student who should determine the quality and quantity of educational activities. Education gives results only when something happens inside the child, and this cannot always be controlled by the teacher.
4. Orient the teacher towards future professional teaching activities in society. The essence of practical work lies not only in the acquisition of specific knowledge, but also in the school’s participation in social activities and in the life of society. In the process of practice, students learn a lot about professions and types of practical activities that will help them develop certain skills, and learn to respect other people’s work that benefits society.
5. System of educational projects. The project method is a teaching system in which children gain knowledge in the process of planning and completing timely, increasingly complex practical projects. The advantages of the project method are the development of children’s entrepreneurial spirit and the ability to evaluate any situation. This method teaches them perseverance and independence, but it should be remembered that in any case they need the help of a teacher to ensure an effective learning process.
6. Continuity of education. John Dewey proposed the concept of lifelong education for all ages. Society must be in a process of continuous learning and re-education. Life is constantly evolving, so education must respond instantly to changes occurring in the world. If this task is not completed, society will face problems without being ready to solve them.
7. Play activities. According to J. Dewey, there is a need to include gaming activities in the educational process. The materials used in the game should be as close to real conditions as possible, as direct and natural as life conditions allow. The game should be used by the school and bring variety to learning activities. Role-playing games play an important role for all ages: they promote self-expression and the development of imagination.
8. Activities of the teacher. John Dewey said that the main task of a teacher is to have a good, comprehensive knowledge of his subject. This gives him the opportunity to structure his training so that his professional activities are most effective. It is entirely up to the teacher in what sequence he will introduce students to this or that object of study. “Instrumental pedagogy” by J. Dewey is characterized by the formation of independence in children. In his opinion, in education it is necessary to realize the unity of educational, work and play activities. The student must acquire experience and knowledge through interaction with the learning environment, finding answers to complex questions, and making various material objects. Dewey recommended that teachers pay maximum attention to the needs of the child and build school education based only on the interests of the child. However, at the same time, the abandonment of systematic teaching was inevitable, which led to a decrease in the role of scientific knowledge, and therefore the application of this theory in the educational process was not as effective as its author had hoped. At the same time, elements of instrumental pedagogy have been successfully included in the process of systematic teaching; the project method is most widely used in modern schools. The main idea of John Dewey's pedagogy was that a child at school should not only be taught the basics, but also prepared for independent life in society, and given the opportunity to apply the acquired knowledge in social activities. This idea has not lost its relevance today, since in today’s constantly changing world a person must be able to adapt to innovations, apply acquired knowledge and skills in new situations.
Born near Burlington (Vermont) on October 20, 1859. We still know little about his ancestors, but it is known that the first Dewey to settle in America had three sons, among the descendants of one of them was John Dewey, the other was Governor Thomas Dewey, and the third was Admiral George Dewey, who gained fame thanks to the battle in Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War of 1898. Three generations of the Dewey family were farmers, his father was engaged in trade. Dewey was educated at Burlington High School, graduated from the University of Vermont, then taught school in Pennsylvania for two years, and was a rural school teacher in his native state for a year. In 1882 he entered Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Here he was influenced by George Sylvester Morris, a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, a representative of American neo-Hegelianism. In 1884 he received a Ph.D. degree from Johns Hopkins University, presenting a dissertation that was devoted to one of the aspects of psycho logical theory Kant.
In the fall of that year, Dewey began teaching philosophy at the University of Michigan and remained there (except for a brief period teaching at the University of Minnesota in 1888–1889) until 1894, when he was offered the position of professor and dean of the department of philosophy, psychology and education at the University of Chicago. It was in Chicago that Dewey switched from the abstract traditional problems of metaphysics and epistemology to the more practical and specialized problems of philosophy, psychology and pedagogy. By 1903 so-called The Chicago school of instrumentalism experienced a period of prosperity, and the pedagogical experiments begun in the “laboratory schools” founded by Dewey in 1896 began to have a noticeable influence on educational theory and practice in the United States. From 1904, Dewey taught at Columbia University and remained there until his retirement in 1930, subsequently serving as professor emeritus of the university. During this period he wrote many works: on logic, theory of knowledge, psychology, pedagogy, social philosophy, art history, religion. How famous philosopher and as a teacher he was invited to China, Japan, Turkey, Mexico, and the USSR. Dewey took an active social position and took part in numerous committees and movements of liberal orientation. Dewey died in New York on June 1, 1952.
Dewey's first writings were published while he was working at Johns Hopkins University. These are two articles in the Journal of Speculative Philosophy, which was published in St. Louis (Missouri) under the editorship of W. T. Harris and is devoted to the study and dissemination of Hegelian ideas. Dewey was never an orthodox Hegelian, but he considered Hegel a great thinker. After becoming acquainted with Hegel's writings, his own works seemed to him simply “intellectual exercises.” Dewey's departure from Hegelianism began when he realized that Hegel's system was formal, "highly artificial" in nature. However, he continued to believe that “Hegel has more mental content and insight than any other systematic philosopher,” including Plato.
Dewey never stopped working on the topic of democracy. In 1888, the University of Michigan published his work The Ethics of Democracy. In 1946, in the “Introduction” to the book Problems of Men, he directly speaks of his belief in a democratic way of life, finds new meanings in the concept of democracy and new ways of convincing readers of the need for a scientific study of man in a social environment, similar to the study of nature by natural scientists. sciences. Democracy for him is not “sovereignty chopped into pieces,” but a partnership in super-individual activity and will. This is not just - and not primarily - a form of government, but reasonable, realistic cooperation with the goal of forming full-fledged individuals. It is not surprising that, as he himself admitted, his philosophy was most fully represented in the work Democracy and Education (1916). Dewey considered democracy and “education in the interests of democracy” to be the most important problems, in the study of which “other questions - cosmological, moral, logical” also find natural application. He called Emerson the “philosopher of democracy,” but this description fits him more closely, as did his words that Emerson was “the prophet and herald of any system that democracy will hereafter build and put into practice.”
The “ultimate essence” in Dewey’s philosophy can be considered “experience.” “Experience” is one of the most polysemantic words in the human language. It is usually said, Dewey noted, that a person is “the nearer to reality the further he is from any experience he has ever had.” In contrast to this orthodox concept, Dewey put forward a “heretical” thesis: “Experience is not a curtain hiding nature from man... What is perceived in experience is not experience, but nature - stones, plants, animals, diseases, health, temperature, electricity, etc. .d." including "devotion, piety, love, beauty and mystery." In other words, “experience” means everything, literally everything. Intellectual reverence for this "all", its conscious and constant exploration for the sake of achieving facts and values, light and guidance, support and renewal, are, from Dewey's point of view, the prerequisites for the intellectual, moral and religious integrity of man. The mistakes of philosophers and all people in general stemmed “from a lack of trust in the guiding forces inherent in experience, which only brave and courageous people can follow.”
According to Dewey, experience is a complex interweaving of events, each of which has its own nature and history. Some of these events occur according to a certain regularity, others are a game of chance; some are beneficial to humans, others harm them. The most important task of a person is to learn to manage them; To do this, we conduct experiments with the help of which we find the causes of events. The complex interweaving of events in which a person is involved gives him the opportunity to combine realism and idealism, to combine inevitable practicality with cherished ideals. From Dewey's point of view, there is only one reliable way to achieve this goal - "intelligence", open and unpremised experimental thinking. Unlike the procedures of pure reason, where the main role is played by the feeling of their rational correctness, the work of the intellect can be observed from the outside and compared with the requirements of the situation that brought it into action. For example, when a problem arises, the first step is to make a guess about how it can be solved. This hypothesis is tested and found to be correct or incorrect. In the first case, the act of thinking can be considered completed, in the latter it remains incomplete, and they either refuse to solve the problem or try to solve it again; then thinking begins anew. An essential difference between the mind and the intellect is that in the first case, “the mind takes possession of objects or comprehends them, being, as it were, outside the world of things, physical and social,” and in the second, it takes the position of “a participant interacting with other things and cognizing them in according to certain rules." Different procedures lead to different results. Thanks to reason, a person achieves theoretically reliable knowledge of unchanging reality; Thanks to his intellect, he is able to manage a constantly changing reality, consisting of a variety of events.
Throughout his career, Dewey adhered to the principle that he formulated in a chapter written for the collection Creative Intelligence (Creative Intelligence, 1917), and which his colleagues were forced to remember, even if they were not able to follow it: “Philosophy is reborn when ceases to be a means of solving the problems of philosophers and becomes a method... of solving the problems of mankind.”
Dewey was always loyal to science, but repeatedly warned that “science itself is still in its infancy” and many of the correctable evils of reality are the result of “an unbalanced, one-sided application of methods of investigation and testing, which alone have a right to be called science.” He believed that a human being is a combination of a developing organism and the processes of the natural and social environment influencing it. For Dewey, logic is a theory of inquiry, not a theory of proof. In this study, symbols and things are used to reconstruct the researcher's world. Dewey proposed replacing faith in religion, which “always means a body of beliefs and ceremonies that have a kind of institutional organization,” with a religious attitude towards all manifestations of life, and faith in God as a specific being with faith in those forces of nature and society that “give rise to and support the idea of good as the goal of our aspirations.”
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Dewey himself preferred to call his philosophy experimentalism or even instrumentalism, rather than pragmatism, as is common in philosophy textbooks. In Reconstruction in Philosophy he wrote: “When we set in motion an intention or a plan, it guides us in a true or false way, leads us towards our goal or leads us away from it. The most important thing about it is its active, dynamic function, and in the nature of the activity that it gives rise to lies all its truth or falsity. A hypothesis that “works” is true; “truth” is an abstract noun denoting a set of cases, actual, foreseen and desired, which are confirmed by the very fact of their discovery and its consequences.” The needs and desires served by truth are, however, not of a personal and emotional nature (as with James), but of a “generally significant” nature. And although Dewey emphasizes the functional purpose of judgments and laws (and even sensations, facts and objects) and calls them means, tools, instruments or operations for transforming an uncertain situation into a definite one in the process of research, he does not deny that judgments and laws also play a cognitive role. role. He argues that “the essence of pragmatist instrumentalism lies in the treatment of both knowledge and practice as means for the production of things useful to life.” Yet the process of knowledge for Dewey is experimentation: causal judgments acquire a projective, heuristic and teleological meaning, rather than a retrospective, revelatory or ontological meaning. Laws, when certain actions are performed, are for Dewey predictions of future events.
Among the main works of Dewey - Leibniz (Leibniz, 1888); Education. School and Society (Education. The School and Society, 1899); Experience and Education (1938), as well as Psychology (Psychology, 1886); Studies in Theoretical Logic (Studies in Logical Theory, 1903); How We Think (How We Think, 1910); Essays in Experimental Logic, 1916; Reconstruction in Philosophy (1920); Human Nature and Conduct (1922); Experience and Nature (Experience and Nature, 1925); The Quest for Certainty, 1929; A Common Faith (1934); Art as Experience (Art as Experience, 1934); Logic as a theory of inquiry (Logic, the Theory of Inquiry, 1938); Freedom and Culture (1939).
John Dewey was born October 20, 1859 in Burlington, Vermont. His parents were Archibald Sprague Dewey and Lucina Artemesia Rich. He was the third of four sons in the family. His oldest brother died in infancy.
The three brothers studied at a public free school, after which the three of them entered the University of Vermont. While studying at the university, thanks to the teachings of Perkins, John became acquainted with the theory of evolution. He also studied Lessons in Elementary Psychology, written by the famous English proponent of the theory of evolution, T. H. Huxley.
The theory of natural selection had a strong effect on Dewey's thoughts, which allowed him to focus on the interaction of man with his environment from a psychological perspective. His mentor and teacher, Henry Thorey, was always close to Dewey and greatly helped him in his philosophical research.
After graduating in 1879, Dewey got a job as a school teacher, where he worked for two years. It was while working at school that he realized that he would like to connect his career with philosophy. Following his wishes, he sent the essay to philosophical theme W. T. Harris, who was editor of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy. The fact that Harris accepted his job gave Dewey the push he needed, and he moved to Baltimore where he attended Johns Hopkins University. At Johns Hopkins University, John Dewey came under the influence of two outstanding minds - George Sylvester Morris and Granville Stanley Hall. D. S. Morris was a German Hegelian philosopher who taught Dewey's characterization of the organic model of nature of German idealism.
And G. S. Hall, who was an American experimental psychologist, shared information with Dewey about the power of scientific methodology and its relationship to the humanities. Dewey received his doctorate in 1884 and accepted a teaching position at the University of Michigan, where he remained for ten years.
Works
While a teacher at Michigan, Dewey published his first two books, Psychology (1887) and Leibniz's New Essays on the Understanding of Man (1888). These books indicated Dewey's early commitment to Hegelian ideals. In Michigan, Dewey met his future good friend and collaborator in philosophy, James Hayden Tufts.
In 1894, Dewey joined the staff of the newly founded University of Chicago.
At the same time, he moved from the ideas of early idealism to a new theory of knowledge, beginning to associate himself with the newly emerging pragmatic philosophy. He expressed his change in philosophical views in the book “Thought and Its Essence,” with which he also published the book “The Teaching of Logical Theory,” where he included essays by other colleagues at the University of Chicago. In the laboratories at the University of Chicago, which he founded, Dewey was able to translate his ideas into a pedagogical method. These works formed the basis of his first major work in the field of education, entitled “School and Social Progress” (1899).
That same year he was elected president of the American Psychological Society. Due to disagreements with the leadership of the University of Chicago, he had to leave the institution. But Dewey's reputation as a psychologist helped him almost immediately get a job at Columbia University in the psychology department, where from 1904 to 1930 - the year of his resignation - he served as a teacher. In 1905, Dewey became president of the American Philosophical Society.
Later years
During his first decade at Columbia University, Dewey wrote numerous articles and essays on his proposed theory of knowledge and metaphysics. These materials were later published in the books Darwin's Influence on Philosophy and Other Essays on Modern Thought (1910) and Essays on Experimental Logic (1916). His interest in educational theory intensified during his time at Columbia University. This interest subsequently led to the publication of How We Think (1910) and an important work entitled Democracy and Education (1916). In addition to his popularity as a philosopher, Dewey also became known for his commentaries on contemporary issues, which were published in various popular magazines, such as The New Republic and Nation.
During the same period, he wrote such important works as: “Reconstruction in Philosophy” (1920), “Human Nature and Behavior” (1922), “Experience and Nature” (1925), “Society and Its Problems” (1927) and “ Search for authenticity" (1929).4 points. Total ratings received: 5.
1. The accumulation of personal experience by children is higher than the mastery of systematized scientific knowledge.
The assimilation of knowledge is a spontaneous, uncontrollable process. Teaching in the pedagogical system of pragmatists deals with the development of personal ideas and concepts. Learning only happens when something happens within the student, and this is in most cases beyond the control of the teacher.
The very concept of “experience,” according to Dewey, is a complex interweaving of events, each of which has its own nature and history. Some of these events occur according to a certain regularity, others are a game of chance; some are beneficial to humans, others harm them. The most important task of a person is to learn to manage these events; To do this, we conduct experiments with the help of which we find the causes of events.
Experience is related to the performance of actions, not to the knowledge of objects. Thinking, especially scientific thinking, becomes just a tool for solving sensory and intellectual problems. Its appearance triggers a chain reaction of mental activity aimed at finding an effective solution to difficulties that impede the functioning of the body.
Dewey believed that learning should occur through experimental knowledge of the surrounding reality. Only by exploring the world around us will a student develop a desire for further self-education. Through experienced knowledge of reality, a student develops a certain character trait, which gives him the opportunity to control what is happening around him and adapt it to his goals.
As Erokhin wrote, according to Dewey, all previous educational systems were designed, first of all, to provide students with a huge amount of factual information without teaching them the means of using it. Academic education programs create among schoolchildren and students, in most cases, an incorrect understanding of society and the relationships that develop in it. Students are fed the experiences of the past and are not at all prepared to face the challenges of the future.
Instead of the traditional model of education, Dewey proposed a new one, the purpose of which should be to teach methods of problem solving. Experience, Dewey says, is practical and reciprocal. In essence, this means that in experience, humanity builds “dialectical relationships” with the surrounding world and through it creates certain ideas and ways of solving them.
People act on ideas and then change their actions according to the consequences of those ideas. Depending on how circumstances turn out, people revise their initial hypotheses. Dewey refers us to “a complete act of thought,” which includes a number of sequential elements: identifying the difficulties of the current situation, then analyzing them, making possible decisions, and testing the consequences of proposed solutions.
Dewey assumed that a person with decision-making skills would be much better prepared to live in a rapidly changing world with its many difficulties and constantly emerging problems. Instead of instilling false absolutes in students, education should prepare students to face challenges that grow with their individual experiences.
2. Only that which gives practical results is true and valuable.
Education and training are carried out not in theoretically abstract forms, but in the process of performing specific practical tasks, where children not only learn about the world, but also learn to work together, overcome difficulties and disagreements. Such a school can educate people who are well adapted to life. In schools that worked according to the Dewey system, there was no permanent program with a consistent system of subjects studied, but only such knowledge was selected that could find practical application in the life experience of students. Thus, D. Dewey proposed essentially a transformation of the abstract, divorced from life, aimed at simple memorization theoretical knowledge contemporary education into the school system of education “by doing,” which enriches the child’s personal experience and consists in his mastering a way of independently understanding the world around him.
The focus on specific practical goals was also reflected in Dewey’s interpretation of methods of teaching individual subjects. Dewey considered geography and history to be the most important subjects, closely interconnected with both nature and the social life of society. The study of social and natural sciences in isolation from each other, according to Dewey, was artificial and abstracted from reality. The life of people in society is inextricably linked with nature, which is the means and material of its development. Therefore, to raise a child, knowledge about the material side of life is necessary, which he can apply not only at school, but also outside its walls.
3. The educational process should be based on the interests of the child.
The interests of the child should be taken advantage of, guiding them along paths that can lead to valuable results; otherwise, they will go at random. It is the student, not the program, who should determine both the quality and quantity of learning. Dewey did not view a school subject as a set of facts and principles that a student could assimilate. In his opinion, this completely ignored the child’s psychology and his interests. He wanted the child to learn to translate abstract knowledge into concrete forms related to practical life. Teaching in the pedagogical system of pragmatists deals with the development of personal ideas and concepts. Learning only happens when something happens within the student, and this is in most cases beyond the control of the teacher. Cognition, which occurs in the depths of the “I,” deals not with thinking, but with the world of feelings, beliefs, understandings, searches, the world of needs and aspirations. Dewey was convinced that education would be fuller and deeper, and learning longer and more intense, if it grew out of the learner's own questions, interests and needs. But at the same time, “coordination” and adaptation of the interests of the individual with the interests of society becomes the leading idea of education.
4. Focus of teaching on future activities in society.
The purpose of practical work is not only to acquire specific knowledge, but also to bring the school into contact with the social activities of society. In the process of practical classes, children learn a lot about different professions, which not only gives them certain skills, but contributes to their development and teaches them to respect any work that benefits society.
5. Method of educational projects
The project method is a teaching system in which students acquire knowledge in the process of planning and performing gradually more complex practical tasks - projects.
The positive aspects of the project method are the development of student initiative, skills for planned work, the ability to weigh circumstances and take into account difficulties. The project teaches them perseverance in achieving goals and teaches them independence.
John Dewey protested against a one-sided focus on the child. In his opinion, students are not able to plan either projects or assignments for them themselves. They need the help of a teacher who would guarantee a long learning process. For Dewey, the project is a shared initiative between teacher and student.
The procedure for solving a problematic situation, described in the book "How Do We Think?" According to Dewey, it includes 5 stages:
1. A feeling of difficulty, unpleasant and alarming. Here, first of all, it is necessary to find out its source and understand the problem for yourself, answer the question: what exactly does it consist of.
2. When the difficulty is established, the problem is formulated, then the uncertain situation turns into a problematic one. Sometimes the first and second stages merge together. This happens in cases where it is clear from the very beginning what the problem is. Naturally, understanding a problematic situation includes both an awareness of the difficulty and an understanding of the goal towards which we are striving.
3. At this stage, a hypothesis is put forward, which should solve the problem, finally eliminate the difficulty, and achieve certainty. This stage requires the work of conceptual thinking, the formation - if necessary - of certain ideas containing the foreseeable consequences of the necessary mental operations, or actions aimed at solving the problem.
4. The fourth stage consists of a critical examination of the put forward hypothesis in a theoretical tracing of its consequences and their assessment.
5. This stage no longer consists of a purely theoretical test of the hypothesis, but of its experimental testing, of finding out how it actually works and what can be achieved with its help.
6. Correlation of academic disciplines.
In light of the new tasks of the school, the set and ratio of disciplines studied is changing: instead of “essential” disciplines, “instrumental” ones are being introduced; or some of the “essential” items should be significantly reduced. Dewey believed that sciences that describe rapidly changing social life and its problems are more important to study than sciences that study extra-social phenomena. "Instrumental" disciplines help students learn approaches to solving life's problems, while "substantive" disciplines encourage "broad thinking" that has no practical application.
Disciplines with socially oriented content prepare schoolchildren and students to understand fluidity and variability human experience and reasonable management of this process. He is not even interested in social sciences as such, but in narrow, topical problems of our time within the framework of certain social disciplines. They are supposed to form the core of education. The study of pressing social issues is offered in the form short courses, which actually constitute the discipline. As for academic research, among them the interest is those that complement the knowledge of current modern problems. For example, these could be courses and a review of research on the problems of the modern family, gender asymmetry in the labor market, the fight against terrorism, the development of democracy and civil society, the creation of election technologies and others, which are structured as broad or truncated in accordance with the age characteristics of students and the level of understanding of social problems.
For example, secondary school students may benefit from courses covering human rights, the foundations of modern democracy, and the structure of the modern family; for college students, expanded programs on the environment, resolving racial, ethnic, religious and gender issues will be effective; for university students, special courses on covering international relations, sections of sociology, politics, etc. are desirable. Traditional disciplines, such as history or physics, also have a place in the pragmatic concept of education, but only insofar as they are useful for understanding and managing modern society. “In general, school and university programs will be based on significant issues that the individual may later have to face in life situations, in his own life situations.
7. Continuing education.
Dewey put forward the idea of universal, lifelong education for all age groups. The entire society must be in a constant process of learning and re-educating. In his work “Democracy and Education” he writes that life is in development, therefore education must quickly respond to changes occurring in the environment, be in constant reorganization, reconstruction, transformation. “Otherwise, members of society will be overwhelmed by the changes they encounter without understanding their connections and implications.”
8. Play activities.
At the same time, Dewey considered it necessary to systematically include gaming activities in the educational process. Play cannot be identified with any external activity of the child. It is, rather, an indication of his mental activity in all its completeness and unity. This is free play, an exercise of all the child’s strength, thoughts and physical movements, with the embodiment, in a form that satisfies him, of his own images and interests. In the child's mind, the play of imagination begins only under the combined influence of suggestions, memories and anticipations associated with the things he touches. Therefore, the materials used in the game must be as "real" as possible, as straightforward and as natural as possible.
The play instinct should be widely used by the school and, on its basis, a variety of play activities should be introduced into the educational process (spontaneous games that replicate the lives of adults, organized games, making toys, design work, etc.). Not only for younger, but also for older schoolchildren, such gaming activities as dramatization and role-playing games are important: they involve the affective sphere of a person in the learning process, contribute to his self-expression and ensure the integrity of knowledge of the world. It is in play, he believed, that the child first develops the need to interact with the world, with peers; the game is an effective means of developing the intellectual, moral and volitional qualities of the emerging personality.
9. Activities of the teacher.
“The teacher’s task is to select those facts within the existing experience, with the help of which it is potentially possible to pose new problems, prompting additional observations that expand the scope of subsequent experience. Catching the emergence of new attitudes and habits in students, the teacher must feel what attitudes and trends contribute to the continuation growth, and which are harmful" "The teacher's duty is not to miss the opportunity." At the same time, the role of the teacher becomes more complex and acquires a fundamentally different quality, necessary for a progressive school.
John Dewey repeatedly said that the only method of a teacher is to know his subject well. This perfect knowledge gives him the opportunity to organize the content of training so that it is most effective. It depends on the teacher in what order he will introduce his students to the facts of a particular science. He himself, so to speak, creates his own subject, based on the urgent needs and capabilities of his students and the specific pedagogical situation. “Knowing enough, a person can begin to act practically anywhere, carrying out his activities consistently and fruitfully.”
Thus, learning should take place primarily as work and play activities, in which the child’s taste for self-learning and self-improvement develops. The child must acquire experience and knowledge by “doing”, during the study of a problematic learning environment, making various models, diagrams, conducting experiments, finding answers to controversial questions, and, in general, ascending from the particular to the general, i.e. using the inductive method of cognition. This pedagogical concept is called “instrumental pedagogy”.
JOHN DEWEY
American philosopher. He gave pragmatism typically American characteristics, combining it with materialism and behaviorism. He denied the objectivity of truth and identified it with usefulness. He developed the concept of instrumentalism, according to which concepts and theories are only tools for adaptation to the external environment. Currently, Dewey's philosophical views are generally accepted in America.
He acted as a reformer in the field of pedagogy. For American philosophers, and, perhaps, intellectuals in general, he was and remained the highest philosophical authority. If any American undergraduate, graduate student, or professor were asked to name one philosopher with a capital P, probably four out of five would name Dewey.
The future philosopher was born on October 20, 1859 in the city of Burlington, in the small northern state of Vermont, in the family of a tobacco manufacturer. After graduating from high school, he began studying at the University of Vermont in the liberal arts program. He studied philosophy with particular passion under the guidance of Professor Torey, who taught a course in the philosophy of ethics. Still unsure of his future career, Dewey, after graduating from university, taught from 1879–1881 at a private high school in Oil City (Pennsylvania), where his cousin was the principal. While working at school, John continued his intensive studies in philosophy.
In 1881 he submitted his first article, "The Metaphysical Perception of Materialism," to the Journal of Philosophy, around which the St. Louis Philosophical Society was grouped. The article was favorably received, published, and its author was recommended to continue his philosophical research. This determined Dewey's final choice of life path - he decided to become a philosopher.
As Dewey's biographers note, this was a courageous act, because in those distant times (after the end of the Civil War), philosophy was studied and relevant courses taught at universities mainly by priests, whose official religious doctrines were intricately linked with Kantianism and other European schools. Dewey had no intention of becoming a priest. He wanted to study secular philosophy and entered Johns Hopkins University, where he was lucky enough to meet and collaborate with a brilliant scientific “trio” - Charles Peirce, who taught a course in logic, Stanley Hall, an expert in experimental psychology, and George Maurice, who taught the history of philosophy. All three had a great influence on the formation of the philosophical, psychological and pedagogical views of the young graduate student, especially Maurice, who revealed the depths to the young scientist German philosophy, in particular Hegel and Kant. In 1884, Dewey defended his dissertation on “Kant’s Psychology” and, on Maurice’s recommendation, began teaching at the University of Michigan, where he spent 10 years (1884–1894) teaching and research.
This period marked Dewey's gradual retreat from Hegelian idealism, although Hegelianism left a significant mark on his thinking and work. Hegelian dialectics turned out to be especially significant for Dewey, which helped him overcome the eternal dualism of the concepts of individual and community, body and thinking, ideal and real, and consider them in dialectical unity. During the Michigan period, Dewey came under the strong influence of experimental psychology and, in particular, William James's Principles of Psychology, which is a systematic exposition of the behaviorist interpretation of human behavior and perception. (Behaviorism takes into account only those facts of behavior that can be accurately established and described, without considering it necessary to “understand” the internal mental processes hidden behind them.)
In the outline of his autobiography, Dewey wrote that "James's scientific approach more and more permeated my ideas and acted like a ferment transforming my old ideas." At the same time, it was during this period that Dewey showed interest in the social problems of society, which did not fade away almost throughout his life and which did not allow him to remain only within the framework of abstract philosophical constructs. This was facilitated by profound changes in American society associated with the rapid industrialization of the country, the influx of immigrants, and the destruction of traditional relationships and values characteristic of the rural community.
A significant role in the increased attention to social problems born of new living conditions was played by meeting Alice Chipman, a young woman with a pronounced independent position and social activity. In 1886 she became Dewey's wife. Dewey was greatly influenced by the social activist and educator Jane Addams. She founded the first unusual institution in Chicago - the Settlement, which became a Mecca for anyone interested in reforming society through the reorganization of education.
There were interest clubs, mutual learning circles, and research groups for studying local problems and developing programs of social reform.
Dewey actively participated in the work of the settlement, gave lectures there, stayed for a long time and talked with listeners, attended classes and in 1897 joined the board.
At the University of Michigan, Dewey taught a course in ethics and published his first books: “The Ethics of Democracy” (1888), “Essays on the Critical Theory of Ethics” (1891), “The Study of Ethics: A Program” (1894). Subsequently, all these works were included in the great work “Ethics” (1908).
Dewey's name as a philosopher became famous in academic circles, and in 1894, the president of the University of Chicago, William Harper, invited the young professor to the position of head of the department of philosophy (which also included pedagogy). Later it was divided into two independent departments, and Dewey headed both.
The University of Chicago was a new educational institution (opened in 1892) with an energetic president, young professors who shared predominantly liberal views. Dewey actively collaborates with a number of prominent scientists at the university - sociologists, philosophers, and anthropologists. In 1896, together with his wife, he created a laboratory school at the university, the purpose of which was to test his philosophical and psychological ideas. The theoretical key to the school's work was Dewey's idea that "society could be reformed through the school." But to do this, the school itself must radically change and become a community in which all students are involved in joint and productive activities and learning occurs in the process of these activities.
The Chicago period in Dewey's life (1894–1904) was the most active and fruitful in the field of pedagogy. He ideologically guides the work of the laboratory school and helps in the development of new forms and methods of teaching children in primary school. In the late 1890s he gave a series of lectures on the "new education" to school parents. The lectures compiled a book under the general title “School and Society” (1899).
In 1904, due to friction with the university leadership related to the laboratory school, Dewey left Chicago. He accepts an invitation from one of the oldest and most prestigious universities, Columbia, to take the position of head of the philosophy department. Dewey remained at Columbia University until the end of his life (from 1930 as professor emeritus) and was mainly engaged in the development of philosophical problems. Major works created during this period (“How We Think,” “Reconstruction of Philosophy,” “Problems of Man,” etc.) glorified his name not only in the country, but throughout the world.
At the theoretical and philosophical level, he develops the problem of democracy and education and publishes a book under this title (“Democracy and Education”, 1916); together with his daughter Evelyn Dewey, summarizes the experience of “new” schools and publishes the book “Schools of the Future” (1915); he holds key positions in a number of influential pedagogical organizations - the American Federation of Teachers, the American Association of University Professors, the Association for Progressive Education, which allows him to disseminate his pedagogical ideas and influence school practice.
A keen interest in life and its social problems did not leave Dewey until the end of his life. Possessing worldwide fame, already at a fairly advanced age, at the end of the 1920s he set off on long journeys to countries in which revolutionary transformations took place that put an end to monarchist-dictatorial regimes (Russia, China, Mexico, Turkey).
In the Soviet Union, Dewey met many prominent teachers of that time who were busy creating a new school, and visited the famous experimental station of the People's Commissariat for Education near Moscow, which was headed by S. Shatsky. Dewey was delighted with what he saw: “For the first time in history I saw not a separate school, but an entire educational system, officially organized on the principle of connecting the school with society and the environment. What I saw in Shatsky’s colony has no analogue in the world. Students are involved in real activities to improve the surrounding social environment, they improve sanitary conditions, participate in the eradication of illiteracy, teach peasants how to increase their harvest, etc. Russian schoolchildren are organized more democratically than ours.” Many of Dewey's works were translated and published in the USSR with forewords by prominent Soviet educators.
In the second half of the 1930s, Dewey became one of the most odious figures in our country. The fact is that after the well-known trials in Moscow, he accepted the offer to head a commission to investigate the so-called “anti-Soviet activities” of Trotsky. The commission went to Mexico, where Trotsky lived, and studied all available materials.
Its conclusion, signed by Dewey, was unequivocal: Trotsky was not guilty of anything, and the references to him that were made during the trials were nothing more than slander.
However, Dewey was also criticized in his own country. After the first launch of the Soviet satellite, which was regarded in the United States as a “triumph of Soviet education,” Dewey's ideas, which fueled the progressive education movement, came under fire.
Observing destructive processes in a rapidly changing society, Dewey at the same time disagreed with those who interpreted democracy as the cause of all social evils. He tried to substantiate his theory of a democratic society. In fact, from the late 1880s until the end of his life, the problem of democracy and a democratic society became the leitmotif of his philosophical and pedagogical works.
In these quests, Dewey was greatly influenced by the ideas that were developed by the Metaphysical Club at Harvard University. It included philosophers, historians, lawyers, mathematicians, and theologians. Despite the diversity of the composition, all participants were united by the desire to comprehend the radical changes taking place in the United States and to develop a theory that would correspond to the peculiarities of the development of this country and would become a “third” line between materialism and fideism in philosophy.
The first ideas were born in the Metaphysical Club, which later formed a philosophical movement called “pragmatism” (from the Greek pragma - business), which became the hallmark of American theoretical thought.
A special place in the club belonged to Charles Peirce and William James, whose works played a decisive role in the development of Dewey as a philosopher and teacher-theorist of the pragmatic direction. Peirce defended the position that there are no innate ideas and eternal truths in the world. Truth, according to Peirce, is always relative. It can be true only at this stage of cognition - provided that the phenomenon is clear, distinct, and irrefutable. Everything that helps a person solve his problem and achieve success is true.
In the same vein, W. James developed his philosophical constructs, which he wrote for the American intelligentsia, expressed his thoughts simply and clearly, and thereby greatly contributed to the popularization of the ideas of pragmatism and their assimilation by people far from the narrow philosophical circle. John Dewey worked during a time of great upheaval in the world. World War, revolutions in various countries, the great depression - the global economic crisis.
“Insecurity and strife have become so general that the prevailing mood is one of restless and pessimistic uncertainty.” Social tension, instability, and uncertainty about the future prompted Dewey to seek ideas that would, in his words, “reconstruct” philosophy and make it actionable, helping people survive in a radically changing world. Pragmatism, updated by Dewey's ideas, was called instrumentalism, which, according to the author, should become a method of detecting and interpreting the most serious conflicts encountered in life, a method of moral and political diagnosis and prognosis.
The main category of instrumentalism is experience in which subject and object merge together and are “coordinated.” Dewey emphasizes important rational, mental activity of a person in experience. At the same time, the concept of “experience” is interpreted very broadly (experience is not only rational, but also madness, illness, confusion, nonsense, etc.). Experience, according to Dewey, is not simply a continuous stream of life, but a series of situations: “The statement that individuals live in the world means specifically that they live in a series of situations.” Experience for Dewey has an important quality - a focus on the future. It aims to transform the environment and strive to control it in new directions. In this regard, in experience the real (what should be changed) and the ideal (plans for transformation) are always interconnected.
Dewey views ideas as a means of influencing reality and changing situations in the direction desired by a person. He insists that the truth of ideas is determined by their effectiveness, their success in solving problems that arise in a person. An idea is true if it fits the situation, just as “the key meets the conditions imposed by the lock.”
Dewey worked a lot and hard on the problems of “man and society”, “man and democracy”, “democracy and education”. Observing the changes taking place in American society and associated with the rapid process of industrialization, the philosopher noted the real deformations of the democratic ideas of the “founding fathers of the state.” How can we preserve and strengthen the democratic foundations of society? Dewey finds the answer to this question in a new interpretation of the concept of “democracy”. He persistently pursues the idea that the essence of democracy is not in the form of governance, it is not associated only with politics and cannot be reduced to the concepts of “managers” and “governed”. Democracy, according to Dewey, is a way of human life, it is “a form of unification of people through which the individual realizes himself and contributes to the common good.”
The concept of “democracy” in Dewey’s works carries not a political and managerial, but an ethical meaning.
Dewey viewed a person as a set of biological and mental properties, and he especially emphasized the importance of the social element in the development of the individual. For Dewey, a person is an active being who is inextricably linked with the social environment.
Dewey outlined ideas about human behavior in a rapidly changing society, such as the American one at the turn of the century, in many of his works: “Human Nature and Behavior” (1922), “The Way We Think” (1910), “Democracy and Education” (1916). ), “Individualism - Old and New” (1930), etc. Dewey argued that democracy creates the most stable and unified society of people. In it, all or the majority have the opportunity and freedom to take initiative, to create new things, and thus “the individual continually discovers, shapes and reorganizes his self as a member of the community for the purpose of its well-being.”
In a traditional society, in which changes are slow and almost imperceptible, a person in his actions and behavior is guided by instincts and established social traditions. The situation is different in a rapidly changing society. The rate of change in it is so great that there is no reason to talk about a priori concepts, the values of “good” and “bad,” Dewey claims.
He substantiates the category of “reflective morality”, the essence of which is a person’s ability to self-regulate behavior. In each specific life situation, a person must make decisions and determine the nature of action and behavior in accordance with the good of society. A democratic society, Dewey points out, “provides the individual with freedom, but at the same time it imposes on him responsibility for his actions”, requires a developed mind and the ability to independently determine his actions, “without allowing others to fool him.”
Reflective ethics has been subject to intense criticism both in the United States and in other countries. Dewey was accused of immoralism and moral relativism. Critics tried not to notice that the philosopher not only substantiated the idea of “reflective morality”, but also developed a concept of how to prepare a person for self-regulation of behavior. His book “How We Think” (1910) is dedicated to this.
In an autocratic society, Dewey argues, a person is required to be obedient, submissive, and follow prescribed instructions. In a democracy, a person who has freedom of initiative and action must develop independent, “reflective” thinking. The latter, according to Dewey, is “an active, persistent, careful consideration of beliefs or a body of knowledge in the light of the foundations on which they are based, and the development of further conclusions of one’s own.” Reflective thinking is always associated with finding a way out of difficulties, the need to solve a problem that has arisen in a person’s life situation.
The situation of choice prompts a person to resort to the use of methods and stages of knowledge characteristic of science. The scientific method, Dewey argues, is a fundamental method of problem solving and a method of reflective thinking. This method must be mastered and used by a person in various life situations in order to achieve success. Thinking has an instrumental function: it is a means of best adapting a person to the environment and a means of improving it.
Reflective thinking and the instrumental method, according to Dewey’s idea (and one can agree with him), liberates a person and his abilities, allows, in a democracy, not only the elite, but all people to freely experiment, expand, enrich, develop their social experience, focusing on the common good. Based on his understanding of experience, Dewey denied the importance of purpose and result.
What is important for the individual and society is not the result achieved, but the ever-expanding and more human progress of experience, “in which everyone takes part and to which everyone contributes.”
Dewey's pedagogical ideas are inextricably linked with his philosophical and social views. Devoted to the ideas of democracy, rooting for its imperfections, the stratification of American society, the hardships of millions ordinary people, the philosopher saw education as a powerful means of developing true democracy. “The single fundamental institution that creates a better society is the public school system.” But then he emphasized the need for its radical transformation.
When developing his pedagogical system, Dewey draws much from the heritage of his great predecessors - Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Froebel. It would not be a great exaggeration to say that the basis of Dewey’s pedagogical system is Rousseauism, adapted to the conditions of the industrial era and equipped with the concepts of pragmatist philosophy. Dewey is a very prolific writer. About 30 books and about 900 articles have been published from his pen; he is a universal philosopher. His works cover the entire spectrum of philosophical and social issues, including ethics, aesthetics, religion, etc.
In Europe, little is known about Dewey. But American authors argue that many ideas of European philosophers, especially postpositivist and postmodernist ones, are anticipated in his works. And one of Dewey’s students and followers, Sidney Hook, even wrote a book, “Pragmatism and the Tragic Meaning of Life,” in which he suggests the ideological kinship of existentialism with Dewey’s teachings.
John Dewey remarried at age 88, took two adopted children, and ended his life on June 1, 1952 in New York.
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