The explanation is as follows:

Dewey's education is a close combination of education and life experience. Life is education, a process of life, and school is a form of life. Life needs to be consistent with children's own life, and school life should also be consistent with off-campus life. The proposition that education is life is one of Dewey's understandings of the essence of education. Its basic connotation is that education is the process of life. Dewey believes that education is a life process, and school life is also a life form.

He emphasized that school life should fit children's own life, meet their interests and needs, and let children have fun in real school life. At the same time, he also pointed out that school life should adapt to the social life outside the school, adapt to the changing trend of modern society and become an important force to promote social development. School is society. On the basis of "education is life", Dewey further put forward the proposition that "school is society".

In fact, he hopes that school life will become a selected, purified and ideal social life, so that the school can become a primary society suitable for children's development. He emphasized that the center of school curriculum should not be science, but children's own social activities. "School is society" is a further extension of "education is life". The purpose of "education is life" to transform social life through education lies not only in the present, but also in the future, and in creating a better life than real life.