Experience and Education

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1938

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Preface-Chapter 2

Chapters 3-5

Chapters 6-8

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Chapters 6-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 6 Summary: “The Meaning of Purpose”

Dewey continues his discussion of freedom. He argues that self-control is identical to the freedom to frame and act on one’s own purposes. He mentions that fifth-century BCE philosopher Plato described a slave as someone who acts to serve the purposes of others. Dewey considers the person without self-control a slave to internal desires and impulses. Students should participate in framing the purpose of their learning activities in progressive schools.

Dewey states that a purpose starts as an impulse that, when obstructed, converts to a desire. A purpose is a goal that involves thinking about the consequences that will come from acting on the impulse. This forethought of consequences involves intelligent planning based on objective or external circumstances. It also involves judging the significance of acting upon perceptions of objective circumstances.

Dewey enumerates the steps involved in forming purposes. The first step is to observe surrounding conditions. The second step requires thinking about what happened in the past in similar conditions. The third step is to judge the significance of empirical observations. He then states that desire itself is not true purpose, quoting the adage, “[i]f wishes were horses, beggars would ride” (69). Nor is activity an end to itself, as activity must follow intelligent design. He gives the example of all the practical steps needed to build a new house to illustrate intelligent design of activity and the difference between desire and purpose.

Traditional schools have overlooked student impulses and desires as motivating factors. Progressive schools should not react against this by conflating impulse and desire with purpose. Purpose requires intelligent observation and judgment. Teachers should guide students in framing and working to achieve purposes. This enhances, not curtails, student freedom, but progressive teachers might be afraid to even make suggestions to students. Why, then, Dewey asks, even supply students with materials? Just because it is possible to push students too hard in forming and achieving purposes does not mean educators should completely withdraw from the process. Instead, the teacher should be aware of the learners’ abilities and help them plan cooperatively.

Chapter 7 Summary: “Progressive Organization of Subject Matter”

Dewey acknowledges that he has mentioned how objective conditions of learning affect educational outcomes, but he has not discussed subject matter. All academic subjects begin outside the ordinary life experiences of students. Progressive pedagogy is better at connecting basic academic knowledge with life experience, a key factor in its success in elementary education.

The challenge is to expand early educational experiences into wider and deeper learning, which Dewey terms progressive development. He gives the example of an infant who learns to reach, crawl, walk, and talk. Educators encounter young learners at the end of this phase and must deliberately nurture the progressive development of students in school settings. This involves not merely giving students new materials but also carefully planning curriculum in each subject that builds from elementary to advanced concepts. This is in keeping with the principle of continuity of educational experience.

Traditional schools teach to subject standards determined in the past. Advocates of progressive education may react against this and think they should teach to present experiences. Dewey says progressive educators have the task of directing students into future learning opportunities beyond their present experience.

Selection of subject matter material has been a weakness of the progressive school movement. This is understandable, as this new philosophy breaks from traditional curriculum and has not had time to develop materials. Dewey argues against a single course of studies for all progressive schools. That would contradict the principle of connecting curriculum to life experiences of individual students. Dewey says certain educational theorists call for education to go back to irreducible first principles, a concept articulated by fourth-century BCE philosopher Aristotle and 13th-century philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas, lest it be subject to trends. Dewey argues that the scientific method should inform the foundation of educational theory.

Students should participate in intelligently planned activities that prepare them for increasingly advanced future learning through lived experience. Learning can proceed through hypothesis testing, which involves forming ideas, acting, observing results, and noting facts for future use. Science can reference everyday objects. Mathematics education can connect with the cultural history of technology, as exemplified by Mathematics for the Million, a popular 1936 book by Lancelot Hogben. Young students obviously cannot master the same material as adult subject experts, but this expertise “represents the goal towards which education should continuously move” (83).

Chapter 8 Summary: “Experience—The Means and Goal of Education”

Dewey begins this short closing chapter by stating that he has taken it for granted that education must be based on lived experience, the core principle of his educational philosophy. Asserting that there is general discontent with the present condition of education, he asserts that educational theory must change. It can either return to old, prescientific standards, or it can embrace the scientific method. His book has described how an educational philosophy based on experience can proceed.

The danger Dewey sees in intelligently planning educational tasks based on ordinary experiences is that educators might not truly adopt the experimental method. This newer path for education is more difficult than traditional schooling, and it is a mistake to think education is a matter of improvisation.

Although he has frequently contrasted traditional and progressive education in this text, Dewey explains he does not think of education in those simple binary terms. Just calling something progressive education does not make it better; it is essential to proceed from a robust theory centered on experience.

Chapters 6-8 Analysis

Invoking Plato, who considered slaves to be people who could not follow their own purposes, Dewey transitions from the theme of freedom to the role of purpose in his educational theory. A central figure in the history of philosophy, Plato strongly influenced intellectual culture in Dewey’s era. The reference lends gravity to Dewey’s belief that a discussion of freedom and education must include understanding the nature of purpose. Dewey defines purpose as starting as an impulse that, when interrupted, becomes a desire that inspires observation of the objective context, interpreting what the cues mean through one’s own and taught past experiences, considering consequences of potential actions, and then planning strategies to accomplish the goal.

Noting that neglecting the motivating role of impulse and desire represents a major failing of traditional schools, Dewey cautions it is not enough for students to indulge their impulses and desires in learning. He questions the point of even providing materials if the teacher does not help plan learning experiences. Instead, Dewey believes that teachers should help students judge what objective conditions mean, understand consequences of actions, and form strategies to fulfil well-defined learning purposes. Quoting the adage about how if wishes were horses beggars would ride, Dewey inserts another moment of humor into one of the book’s more philosophically abstract portions, reflecting his interest in appealing to a general audience. He accomplishes a similar purpose by clearly distinguishing between desires and purposes using a description of the practical steps needed to build a new house.

Dewey admits that progressive education has rejected the traditional curriculum without yet developing its own standards. Certain educational theorists believe in returning to logical first principles and rebuilding a theory of learning from there. Instead, Dewey believes education should be based on the scientific method of observation and experimentation, something he asserts educators have never tried.

Rejecting a single, uniform curriculum for progressive schools, an approach that would contradict his philosophy of developing lessons for specific learners, Dewey suggests planning backward from what subject-matter experts know. Young students cannot learn such advanced information and skills, but educators can use subject expertise as goals toward which increasingly challenging learning experiences proceed. Dewey argues that lessons in science should reference everyday items and suggests teaching math with the 1936 book Mathematics for the Million by Lancelot Hogben, which showed how math influenced human cultural technology.

Education must change, and there is growing acceptance of that assertion. Dewey thinks it should embrace the scientific method, that an approach based on experience is the way to achieve an empirical philosophy of education. The risk is that in rejecting the regimented nature of traditional education, progressive educators will wrongly assume that education by experience is just a matter of improvisation and impromptu lessons, an assumption he has argued against in this book. Dewey closes by reiterating that although he has contrasted old traditional and new progressive approaches in this book, the contrast is not absolute. He aims to discover the deeper nature of education itself, and promoting labels like “progressive” is no substitute for developing a rigorous philosophy of education.