Starting from the argument that education is life, he demanded that the school be made into the same environment as the existing social system, so as to cultivate people who can fully adapt to the current social life. Dewey clearly pointed out in School and Society that schools should be created as a small society and an embryonic society.
In other words, the school is a special social environment. The difference between it and the real social environment is that it divides the complex social life and culture into several parts and elements according to a certain purpose, so that children can absorb them step by step and provide them with a simplified environment. Try to exclude worthless things in social relations and social culture.
School is Dewey's teaching theory.
On the basis of criticizing traditional school education, Dewey put forward the basic principles of doing middle school. Because people's initial knowledge and the most determined knowledge are all about how to do it. Therefore, the teaching process should be a process of doing. In his view, if children have no chance to do it, it will inevitably hinder their natural development.
Children are born with a desire to do things and work, and have a strong interest in activities, so special attention should be paid. Dewey believes that learning by doing is learning from activities and learning from experience, which links the acquisition of knowledge in school with activities in the process of life.