Also, not all learning comes directly from subject matter it can include attitudes and perspectives picked up incidentally to direct education. Certain experiences, such as the drills used in traditional schools, may bore students or make them less open to new experiences. Not all experiences are of the same educational quality. Second, the principle of interaction recognizes the equal importance of considering internal and external conditions of learning. Each experience shapes the kinds of experiences learners encounter and their attitudes toward new experiences. First, the principle of continuity states that all past, present, and future experiences of an individual exist in a nested relationship.

Dewey’s theory of education from experience rests on two main principles. Dewey supports a theory of progressive education based on consideration of individual student experiences. 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.

Traditional educators focus on controlling external conditions of learning and enforcing external forms of order, and are not concerned with internal (mental) learning factors. Students in this older model of school are passive and obedient. Traditional education conveys knowledge and skills determined in the past via textbooks and teacher-centered lectures. Traditional education proceeds in a top-down manner, with teachers clearly distinct from students in learning environments. This general warning delivered, Dewey contrasts the older traditional approach and the newer progressive approach to education. He notes the tendency to think in terms of absolute opposites and the unhelpful propensity to define theories by reversing the tenets of rival approaches. This study guide references the 2015 Free Press edition.ĭewey begins Experience and Education by cautioning against blind adherence to any movement. Dewey also recommends an approach to developing progressive curriculum.

He discusses issues of social control and freedom, and how teachers can help students form clear learning purposes. Dewey highlights two core principles: (1) the continuity of experience and (2) interaction between internal (mental) and objective (external) conditions of learning. In this brief, theoretically dense philosophical treatise, Dewey argues in favor of education based on lived experiences of individual learners.

Dewey john democracy and education