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JOHN DEWEY’S
EXPERIENCE AND EDUCATION. ... This condition is satisfied only as the educator views teaching and learning as a continuous process of reconstruction of experience” (87)
Irina Abramov
November 15, 1999
Foundations of Education
Prof. Elizabeth LeBlanc
In Experience and Education, probably one of the most enlightening books written on the philosophy of education, John Dewey analyzes both the traditional and progressive schools. ... He carefully examines many factors that contribute to this educational dilemma, which include the lack of a philosophy of experience, of interaction and continuity, of goal and purposes, as well as others.
In this book, John Dewey identifies many differences between the traditional and progressive schools. ... It believes in free activity, as opposed to external control, as well as learning through experience. ... One of the most important views of the progressive school is that there is an intimate and necessary relation between the processes of actual experience and education.
However, the general principles of the new education “do not themselves solve any of the problems of the actual and practical conduct and arrangement of the progressive schools. ... instead they set new problems which have to be worked out on the basis of a new philosophy of experience” (21). Some of these new problems include questions such as “what is the place and meaning of subject-matter and organization within experience? ... Also, if external control is no longer applied, then what factors DO control the inherent within experience? Dewey also notes that basing personal experience might signify more guidance by others, rather than less.
In order to pursue in the growth of new education, we must build a philosophy of experience, since this is what the new education is relying upon. Without a theory of experience education becomes blind. While each experience might be exciting in itself, they might not all draw connections amongst each other. ... Many experiences might be mis-educative and since experiences effect future experiences, it is vital to understand that what’s most important is the kind of experience a child is exposed to.
Thus, the progressive schools, in order to be able to dodge these unclearities, must develop a strong philosophy of education that is based on a philosophy of experience. As John Dewey states, “A coherent theory of experience is required by an attempt to give new direction to the work of the schools, though it may be a slow process of growth and one which is filled with obstacles” (30).
An important component to education is what is called the “experiential continuum”. ... This principle of continuity of experience means that “every experience both takes up something from those which have gone before and modifies in some way the quality of those which come after” (35).
Approximate Word count = 2203
Approximate Pages = 8.8
(250 words per page double spaced)
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