On the basis of his philosophical, sociological and psychological theories, Dewey comprehensively expounded his pragmatic education view. Dewey discussed the essence of education from various angles many times in his own educational theory.

His views on the essence of education can basically be summarized by three important arguments he put forward, namely, "education is growth", "education is life" and "education is the continuous transformation of experience". He clearly pointed out: "Education is growth, and it has no other purpose except itself. If we want to measure the value of school education, we should see whether it can create a persistent desire for growth and whether it can provide a way to make this desire grow. "

From the viewpoint that education is growth, Dewey also put forward that the essence of education is life from the perspective of the relationship between education and social life. He pointed out that children's instinctive growth always develops in the process of life, or that life is the social expression of growth. Therefore, education is life. In his view, people can't be divorced from the environment, and schools can't be divorced from the immediate life.

The development and process of education is the immediate life itself. School education should focus on the existing life situation, rather than imposing future things and adult experience on children from the outside, otherwise it will ignore children's needs and interests and put them in a passive position in education.

Dewey regards the essence of education as "the transformation or reorganization of experience" from the perspective of acquiring knowledge. This argument is completely based on his subjective empiricism and philosophical theory of agnosticism.