(A) on the nature of education
Dewey criticized the traditional school education on the basis of pragmatism, empiricism and functional psychology, and put forward his basic views on the essence of education: "Education is life" and "School is society".
1, "Education is life"
Dewey believes that education is the process of children's life now, not the preparation for their future life. He said: "Life is development, and continuous development is life." Therefore, the best education is "learning from life" and "learning from experience". Education is to provide children with conditions to ensure their growth or complete life.
Because life is growth and children's development is the process of primitive instinctive growth, Dewey emphasized that "growth is the characteristic of life, so education is growth." In his view, education is not to force children to absorb external things, but to let human innate ability grow.
Therefore, Dewey believes that the educational process has no purpose outside itself, and the purpose of education lies in the educational process. As a matter of fact, he opposes taking externally imposed goals as indicative goals for children's growth.
2. "School is society"
Dewey believes that since education is a process of social life, school is a form of social life. He stressed that the school should "become a small society, a primary society." In school, we should simplify the real social life into an embryonic state and present the re-presented social life. As far as the specific requirements of "school is society" are concerned, Dewey put forward that, first, the school itself must be a social life with all the significance of social life; Second, on-campus learning should be connected with off-campus learning, and the two should interact freely.
However, "school is society" does not mean a simple reproduction of social life in school. Dewey also believes that schools, as a special environment, should have three important functions, namely, "simplifying and sorting out various factors that tend to develop;" Purify and idealize the existing social customs; Create a broader and more balanced environment than when teenagers are alone. "
(B) Teaching theory
Teaching theory is a very important part of Dewey's pragmatic educational thought system.
1, "Learn by doing"
On the basis of criticizing traditional school education, Dewey put forward the basic principle of "learning by doing". Because of people's initial knowledge and the most determined knowledge,
The key is how to do it. Therefore, the teaching process should be a "doing" process. In his view, if the child has no chance to "do", then
It will inevitably hinder the natural development of children. 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" means "learning from activities" and "learning from experience", which links the knowledge gained in school with the activities in the process of life. Because children can learn from truly educational and interesting activities, which will help their growth and development. In Dewey's view, this may mark a turning point in a child's life.
However, the work activities that children "do" or participate in are different from occupations.
Education. Dewey pointed out that implementing the principle of "learning by doing" will make the influence exerted by the school on its members more vivid, lasting and full of cultural significance.
2. Thinking and teaching
Dewey believes that good teaching must arouse children's thinking. The so-called thinking is a wise learning method, or a wise experience method in the teaching process. In his view, if there is no thinking, it is impossible to have a meaningful experience. Therefore, schools must provide situations that can arouse thinking experience.
As a thinking process, it is divided into five steps, commonly known as "five steps of thinking". One is the dilemma; The second is to determine the difficulty; The third is to put forward various assumptions to solve the problem; The fourth is to infer these assumptions; The fifth is to verify or modify the hypothesis. Dewey pointed out that the order of these five steps is not fixed.
Starting from the "five steps of thinking", Dewey believes that the teaching process is also divided into five steps accordingly. First, teachers provide children with a situation related to the current social life experience; The second is to prepare children to deal with problems in the situation; Third, it is convenient for children to think and assume to solve problems; Fourth, children sort out and arrange their own assumptions to solve problems; Fifth, children test these hypotheses through application. This teaching process is generally called "teaching five steps" in the history of education. In Dewey's view, in this teaching process, children can learn how to create knowledge to meet their needs. However, he also admitted that it was not an easy task.
The Founder of Pragmatism Education —— Dewey's Educational Thought
John dewey (1859- 1952) is a famous philosopher, sociologist and educator in modern America. Dewey spent most of his life teaching in universities, except for a short time as a teacher in middle schools. He also participated extensively in academic and social activities outside the school, and successively served as the president of the American Psychological Association, the first president of the American Association of University Professors, the president of the People's Forum and the national president of the Independent Political Alliance. He went to Japan, China, Turkey, Mexico and the Soviet Union to inspect the education situation and publicize the pragmatic education thought. Dewey died in new york on 1952. His representative works are: Democracy and Education (19 16), School and Society (1899), How We Think (19 10) and School of Tomorrow (10).
Politically speaking, the most fundamental of Dewey's pragmatic education theory is social reformism. All his educational theories are adapted to the needs of American capitalist production development and monopoly enterprises in the early 20th century, and serve to save the capitalist economic crisis and train tame skilled workers. Its main contents are:
1. Advocate "education is life" and criticize the "classroom center" of traditional education. Dewey believes that in the ever-changing society, education is a process of constantly transforming and reorganizing experience. According to this thought, he advocated that "education is life, not preparation for life", and thus put forward that "school is society", and some things of real social life should be organized into the education process to make the school an "embryonic society". Dewey's educational view is aimed at "traditional education". He believes that "traditional education" is far from life and does not meet the needs of American reality. He pointed out that "traditional education" has three disadvantages: first, "traditional education" teaches outdated dead knowledge, which is provided to students in the form of fixed textbooks. Teachers recite topics from books and students recite them; Second, "traditional education" trains students according to "moral norms handed down from generation to generation"; Third, the teachers of "traditional education" are "agents who impart knowledge and skills and implement the code of conduct". Dewey's criticism of traditional education is timely and positive in many aspects. He emphasized that education should be coordinated with actual social life, pay attention to practical and useful scientific knowledge, and school education should play an active role in social life. This was a relatively new idea at that time. However, he equated education with life and school with society, denying the special function of school education. Because education is only a part of social life, there are educational activities in social life, but some lives are not necessarily education.
2. Advocate "child-centered" and oppose the "teacher-centered" of traditional education. Dewey said: "In school, children's life has become a decisive goal, and all necessary measures to promote children's growth are concentrated in this aspect." He said, from the teacher center to the children center, "this is a change, this is a revolution, this is the same revolution as Copernicus turned the center of astronomy to the sun." Here, the child becomes the sun, and all educational measures revolve around him. Children are the center around which educational measures are organized. "Obviously, Dewey's over-emphasis on children's interest has weakened the leading role of teachers and violated the law of education. However, he criticized the traditional education for neglecting and oppressing children, and demanded that the educational work should be psychological, fully estimate children's psychological characteristics in the teaching process, and explore educational methods and means suitable for children's physical and mental development, so as to enhance children's independence and creativity in learning, which has its reasonable core.
Advocate "learning by doing" and oppose the "book center" of traditional education. Dewey thinks that "learning by doing and asking questions" is much better than "learning by listening". The real center of school curriculum should be children's own social activities, so it is proposed that children should learn from their own activities by doing. To this end, he proposed to replace traditional classroom teaching with life-oriented and active teaching, and to replace book teaching with children's personal experience. In line with his "five-step thinking", he believes that teaching also has five stages: ① learners should have "real situations of experience"; (2) In this "situation", there should be "real questions" for learners to think about; (3) Learners must have considerable knowledge and engage in necessary observation to deal with this problem; (4) Learners must have various ideas to solve this problem; ⑤ Learners put the envisaged method into practice to test its reliability. It should be pointed out that Dewey advocates "learning by doing", emphasizes learners' direct subjective experience, advocates students' personal exploration, attaches importance to applying what they have learned and cultivates students' practical operation ability, which is reasonable in the teaching process. However, the absoluteness of "learning by doing" will inevitably lead to the denial of the value of indirect knowledge and systematic knowledge, which will inevitably be biased.
In a word, Dewey is an influential educational thinker in America. He opposed "traditional education", criticized the pedantry of "traditional education", raised some enlightening questions and put forward some positive opinions. But from the perspective of the whole system, Dewey's pragmatic pedagogy is essentially different from Marxist educational theory.
Dewey's educational thought profoundly influenced American educational theory and practice in the first half of the 20th century. According to his educational principle of "learning by doing" and the theory of "problem teaching method", many reform experiments have appeared. 19 18, Dewey's student and American educator Ke Qubo (also translated by kilpatrick) founded the "design teaching method", proposing to break the traditional subject-based teaching and rigid classroom teaching, cancel textbooks and implement large learning units; Encourage students to decide the purpose and content of learning spontaneously. In the unit activities designed, implemented and developed by students themselves, students acquire relevant knowledge and the ability to solve practical problems through teaching steps such as asking questions, making assumptions, implementing assumptions and verifying assumptions. In fact, it ignores or even denies the study of system theory knowledge. 1920, parkhurst, an American female educator, founded a teaching system called "Dalton System" in Dalton Middle School, Massachusetts. The main measures are as follows: (1) changing the classroom into a homework room for each subject, and displaying reference books and experimental instruments according to the nature of the subject for students to learn and use; (2) Cancel classroom teaching, make the learning content of each subject into a monthly work outline, and students and teachers conclude a learning convention. This system emphasizes the cultivation of independent working ability, but in fact it forms a laissez-faire in teaching.