Experience and Education

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1938

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Preface-Chapter 2

Chapters 3-5

Chapters 6-8

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Themes

The Role of Experience in Education

The main theme of this book is that all education rests on the lived experiences of individual learners. The book explores how the connection between education and experience can inform educational practice (25). Dewey considers experiences to consist of both objective factors, elements outside the mind of the learner, and internal or mental factors. He contends that not all experiences are of equal educational value. Certain experiences, such as those in traditional school settings, may hinder education by causing students to develop maladaptive attitudes, such as cynicism or boredom, that negatively affect how learners will respond to future experiences (25).

Dewey underpins his theory of education from experience with reference to two main principles. The principle of continuity explains that a learner’s educational experiences exist in a nested fashion, or continuum, from the most basic to the most advanced lessons (35-36). Each experience prepares the learner to encounter and interact with future experiences in particular ways (27). The principle of interaction states that all learning experiences involve a relationship between the learner’s mind and external factors (42). According to this principle, learners must be active participants in their educational experiences, not passive recipients of information.

The progressive educator must guide learners in the kinds of experiences that will promote healthy growth (36). This is a much more involved job than traditional teaching, as it requires teachers to consider the past, present, and future experiences, or the overall learning trajectory, of each student. Since education must be based on the experiences of specific students, it is not possible to set a standardized curriculum for all progressive schools (78). In Dewey’s view, each teacher must collaborate with students to determine what and how to learn, then use the scientific method to help students evaluate these learning experiences and prepare for future educational opportunities (87).

Control, Freedom, and Education

This book also explores the relationship between social control and freedom. Dewey maintained a lifelong interest in political freedom, democracy versus fascism, and personal independence of thought. He published Democracy and Education in 1916, arguing that a robust system of education is essential for sustaining a democratic society. The connection between education and freedom remained a theme present in his later works, including Experience and Education. Dewey’s personal enthusiasm for democracy is apparent in his playful appropriation of a line from the “Gettysburg Address.” Since the Civil War and his assassination, Abraham Lincoln has been a symbol of American democracy. By associating his theory of education with this well-known quote from a revered hero of democracy, Dewey implicitly ties his educational theory to democratic values.

He writes that a baby has internal needs, such as for rest and food, but a wise parent does not feed or put the baby to bed whenever it cries. Instead, they draw upon learned experience to set feeding and sleeping patterns. In this way, the more mature parent helps the developing infant learn socially acceptable ways of fulfilling needs. Similarly, teachers should use their maturity to guide students in healthy development. As adults, teachers have a responsibility to set “the conditions for the kind of present experience which has a favorable effect on the future” (50).

Unlike in traditional schools, where teachers impose information on students, Dewey advocates for a more cooperative form of social order in progressive education. He argues social control can come from within a group rather than from without. Dewey makes this point through analogy to a game, stating that the specific rules of the game define the game (52). He says teachers should operate as part of the group, seeing each lesson as “a co-operative exercise, and not a dictation” (72). Dewey also argues that it is not only external control that threatens intellectual freedom; people can also be slaves to their own impulses and desires (67). In his view, the “ideal aim of education is creation of self-control” because self-control frees learners from their impulses and allows them to act with clarity of purpose (64).

Traditional Versus Progressive Education

Dewey uses the dichotomy between older traditional and newer progressive education throughout the book. He writes, “At present, the opposition, so far as practical affairs of the school are concerned, tends to take the form of contrast between traditional and progressive education” (17). He identifies as a progressive educator and often takes examples from traditional education to argue that conventional schooling has neglected the role of student experience. At the same time, he alerts readers to the human propensity to think in terms of “extreme opposites” and repeatedly warns that the binary framing of traditional versus progressive can be counterproductive in developing sound educational practices.

Dewey says that “[t]he traditional scheme is, in essence, one of imposition from above and outside” that “imposes adult standards, subject-matter and methods” on learners (18-19). In traditional schools, “the attitude of students must be, on the whole, one of docility, receptivity, and obedience” (18). Teaching with textbooks and lectures, these schools convey skills and knowledge worked out in the past to a new generation. Traditional schools “put a great restriction on intellectual and moral freedom” to preserve the “outward appearance of attention, decorum, and obedience” (61-62). Traditional schools, able to justify practices with reference to orthodoxy, “could get along without any consistently developed philosophy of education” (28). The progressive approach is therefore far more difficult for educators. Progressive education must carefully consider internal student perceptions and motivations in lessons, not just externally enforced conditions. Progressive teachers must get to know their students as individuals. Dewey argues that progressive teachers should guide students not from above or without but from within the group. Teachers should regard learning “as a social enterprise in which all individuals have an opportunity to contribute and to which all feel a responsibility” (56).

Dewey acknowledges that he has made his case by contrasting traditional and progressive education, but that “the fundamental issue is not of new versus old or progressive against traditional education but a question of what anything whatever must be to be worthy of the name education” (90). In other words, he seeks to apply the scientific method to education to find out what works best. The problem with thinking in binary terms is that “any movement that thinks and acts in terms of an ‘ism becomes so involved in reaction against other ‘isms that it unwittingly becomes controlled by them” (6). If people take the contrast as absolute, they may think progressive education is just a matter of doing the opposite of traditional education, leading to erroneous beliefs like the idea that progressive education is just a matter of improvisation because traditional schools rely on routine (28).