Experience and Education: A Summary of John Dewey's Educational Philosophy

John Dewey's Experience and Education, first published in 1938, is a concise yet comprehensive expression of his educational theory. As one of the most influential American philosophers of the 20th century, Dewey was a prominent advocate for progressive education. Experience and Education reflects Dewey’s background as a trained philosopher as well as his interest in reaching a general audience. In this philosophical treatise, Dewey argues in favor of education based on lived experiences of individual learners.

Dewey's Critique of Traditional and Progressive Education

Dewey begins by cautioning against blindly adhering to any educational movement, noting the tendency to think in terms of absolute opposites and to define theories by reversing the tenets of rival approaches. Dewey analyzes both traditional and progressive education. He sides neither with traditional education, nor with progressive education, but with the understanding of how humans have the experiences they do, and how this understanding is necessary when designing effective education.

Traditional Education

Dewey (1938) defines traditional education as an educational system that focuses on curriculum and cultural heritage for its content. Traditional education proceeds in a top-down manner, with teachers clearly distinct from students in learning environments. Traditional education conveys knowledge and skills determined in the past via textbooks and teacher-centered lectures. Students in this older model of school are passive and obedient. It consists of a rigid regimentation, ignoring the capacities and interests of the learners and encourages an attitude of docility, receptivity, and obedience among learners. Traditional educators focus on controlling external conditions of learning and enforcing external forms of order, and are not concerned with internal (mental) learning factors. Dewey was critical of traditional education, and he saw challenges within this educational approach because it lacked a carefully developed philosophy of experience.

Progressive Education

Dewey (1938) defines progressive education as an educational system that focuses on the learner’s interests and impulse without constraint from the educator. Unlike traditional education, easily justified with reference to heritage and orthodoxy of practice, the newer progressive form of education must proceed from intelligently planned educational theory. It allows excessive individualism and spontaneity among learners and offers growth and expression, free activity, learning through experience, and the acquisition of skills as a means of attaining ends that are vital and appealing to students. Dewey was critical of progressive education, that is he saw challenges within this educational approach because they lacked a carefully developed philosophy of experience.

The Need for a New Philosophy of Experience

Dewey (1938) believes neither progressive nor traditional education is the solution to the opposition that exists in educational theory. He proposes that the problems they present require a resolution based on a new philosophy of experience. As long as the assumption exists that it suffices to reject the ideas of traditional education and to go to the opposite extreme to progressive education, the problem at hand (the lack of a new philosophy of experience), will not even be recognized, let alone being resolved.

Core Principles of Dewey's Educational Theory

Dewey supports a theory of progressive education based on consideration of individual student experiences. Dewey’s theory of education from experience rests on two main principles: continuity and interaction. Sound educational experience involves both continuity and interaction between the learner and what is learned. Thus, Dewey’s philosophy is that experience arises from the interaction of two principles.

The Principle of Continuity

First, the principle of continuity states that all past, present, and future experiences of an individual exist in a nested relationship. The continuity principle is involved in attempts to discriminate between experiences that are educationally worthwhile, and those that are not. Each experience shapes the kinds of experiences learners encounter and their attitudes toward new experiences. The principle of continuity of experience both takes up something from those which have gone before and modifies in some way the quality of those which come after. Dewey’s principle of continuity states that all experiences (past and present) are carried forward and influence future experiences and decisions.

The Principle of Interaction

Second, the principle of interaction recognizes the equal importance of considering internal and external conditions of learning. Dewey’s principle of interaction refers to the objective and internal conditions of an experience. Dewey claims that experience is truly experience only when objective conditions (what the educator does and how they do it) are secondary to what goes on within the individual having the experience. In an experience, interaction occurs between an individual, objects, and other people. The experience becomes what it is because of this transaction between an individual and what constitutes his or her environment. The environment consists of whatever conditions (objects or people) interact with an individual’s internal personal needs, desires, capacities, and purposes that create the resulting experience.

The Role of Experience in Education

Not all experiences are of the same educational quality. Dewey (1938) postulates that experience and education do not directly relate because some experiences are not educational, such as an experience that prevents or distorts the growth of further experience. The challenge for experience based education is to provide learners with quality experiences that will result in growth and creativity in their subsequent experiences. Certain experiences, such as the drills used in traditional schools, may bore students or make them less open to new experiences. Also, not all learning comes directly from subject matter; it can include attitudes and perspectives picked up incidentally to direct education. Dewey calls this collateral learning. Learners grow through experiences, but not all growth is healthy, as a person might develop their abilities in socially harmful directions. Judging the value of an experience should factor in what the experience moves towards and into. The educator has a responsibility to evaluate the direction a learning experience is heading. He or she must be able to judge what attitudes are conducive to continuing growth.

Social Control and Freedom in Education

Progressive education foregrounds students as active participants in learning and allows greater personal freedom. Dewey discusses issues of freedom and social control. He argues that not all social control comes from without and above, as teachers relate to students in traditional schools. He gives the example of a game, where all participants agree on the rules, without which it would not be the same game. Dewey envisions progressive education as proceeding from cooperatively developed purposes and approaches, with teachers acting within the group, more mature than young pupils but not separate from them in the construction of learning experiences.

Social Control as a Social Process

Dewey (1938) relates the principles of continuity and interaction to educational problems and challenges. He chooses social control because of the social process that makes up the educative experience, and because everyone experiences social control; however, social control does not always represent authoritarian rule. It often occurs in agreement and by the members of a group for the benefit of the entire group. An example of social control that occurs in agreement in a school setting with children is the games played at recess, and team sports games such as soccer, hockey, baseball, and football. Dewey explains that these games involve rules that order the children’s conduct. He states that both the rules and the conduct of the game are standardized, and hold the sanction of tradition and precedent. Dewey uses the example of games to show that control of individual actions is affected by the entire situation in which a group of individuals are involved, in that they are both sharing and participating as cooperative and interacting parts of the common experience that benefits the entire group. The control is social, but individuals are part of a community, not outside of it. It is not the will or desire of any one person to establish order, but rather it is the moving spirit of the entire group.

Freedom of Intelligence

Dewey also contends that barriers to freedom come from within as well as from without, since unchecked impulses may interfere with clarity of purpose. Self-control is thus one of the main goals of education. A common mistake is to identify freedom with movement or the physical side of activity. Dewey believes that one cannot separate the physical side of activity from the internal side; that is, from desire, purpose, and freedom of thought. According to Dewey, the only freedom of importance is freedom of intelligence, which he says is freedom of observation and judgement that occur for purposes that are worthwhile. Dewey asserts that the freedom of intelligence-the act of freely thinking, observing and judging-is the only freedom of enduring importance.

The Nature of Purpose in Learning

Students must develop the ability to act from clear purposes. Dewey discusses the nature of purpose. Purpose begins as an impulse that, when interrupted, becomes a desire. At this stage, it is necessary to gather information about the objective conditions of the situation, interpret what these conditions mean, and consider consequences of potential courses of action. Traditional education ignores student impulses, but it is not the case that progressive education simply allows learners to follow each impulse without input from teachers. On the contrary, progressive educators must encourage students to delay acting on impulses and desires, help them make relevant observations, judge empirical evidence, and intelligently plan courses of action that allow the achievement of specific, articulated purposes. A genuine purpose always starts with an impulse. If the immediate execution of the impulse is obstructed, the impulse becomes a desire. However, neither impulse nor desire makes up a purpose. What makes up a purpose is a complex intellectual operation.

Curriculum Development in Progressive Education

Dewey states that one of the greatest criticisms of progressive education is its lack of subject-specific curriculum. He says it is understandable that there is not yet a progressive approach to curriculum organization, as the progressive education movement is new. Certain people think educational curriculum should proceed from the most basic articulations of logic or first principles in the philosophical sense. Instead, Dewey believes in the application of the scientific method, forming and testing hypotheses based on empirical observations. He refuses to allow the possibility of a uniform curriculum for all progressive schools, as this would violate the core value of education based on the experiences of specific learners. Not yet mature adults, students cannot master the skills and knowledge employed by experts. However, expert-level abilities in specific fields represent end goals toward which progressive educators can direct learning. Starting with basic skills and knowledge, progressive educators can plan increasingly challenging lessons that prepare learners to become future experts. Dewey says science can reference everyday objects, and educators can approach math as an applied rather than abstract subject.

Implementing Dewey's Philosophy

Dewey’s idea that “means and ends” are conjoint often confuses readers. Even educators who express their interest or desire to “be Deweyan” in their teaching often run into problems. Dewey gives a clue at the top of p. A framework for a philosophy of education must show reference to what action needs to occur and how the educator will execute it. The more the philosophy holds that education is a development within, by, and for experience, the more important it is to define clear conceptions of what experience is. Dewey explains that the conceptions of experience should show in plans for deciding upon methods of instruction and discipline, subject matter, and upon the material and social organization of the school. Experience should not be just a term that doesn’t indicate the appropriate operations to implement it.

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