Anita McNeil
Educational Theorist Paper

John Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont on October 20, 1859 and died on June 2, 1952, he was ninety two years old. During his academic career, he was a writer, lecturer, and philosopher. Dewey felt that the public educational system needed radical reform, and he was a strong and outspoken promoter of instrumentalism. Dewey believed that the educational experience should provide students with the opportunity to experiment and solve problems. During Dewey’s educational endeavors, he attended the University of Minnesota, the University of Chicago, Columbia University, and John Hopkins.
John Dewey is known as the "Father of Education". Dewey held a strong belief that education and governmental responsibility were linked. Dewey wanted the educational experience to include historical events, contribute to societal causes and consider the student’s background knowledge. It was important to Dewey that education focused on what the student was experiencing and how that experience could impact society. In Dewey beliefs concerning education, it was critical that the student not only gained instruction that connected to their immediate experiences in life, but also provide useful skills to improve their quality of life. Dewey also wanted the educational experience to provide long-term considerations and thought provoking concepts that would enable the student to become a productive contributing member of society.
What I found to be very interesting about John Dewy was that his educational theory did not address the issue of what content the educational process currently or should contain as a cohesive unit. He was fully aware of how events in society could/would impact the learners, but never truly addressed how those experiences or the learner should absorb or adjust to any defined educational content. However, it is important to note that John Dewey did narrow the focus of expanding the educational process in including not just tasks or academic philosophies, but to review the impact of the individualize effects on society and the learner.
When you look at John Dewey’s views in education, it combines the thoughts of traditional and progressive education. John Dewey values both the structure and hands on discipline of the traditional educational model, but also considers the unstructured needs of the student to explore, engage and expand on their individual educational development processes. Dewey understood that the traditional model of education focused on content versus considering a holistic view of understanding the student and the overall process of learning.
John Dewey theory of education is important in today's educational process, because we can actually refer to his theory as laying the groundwork for what we now refer to as Common Core State Standards (CCSS). CCSS is based on providing learning opportunities for the student that connects to the student’s background knowledge and experiences. As previous stated, John Dewey’s theory of education was centered on using background knowledge and experiences as the core component of his theory. Although CCSS, does contain many aspects of John Dewey’s based components, as educators, we are aware that CCSS has expanded to include measurements and additional components.
John Dewey was an educator that believed that education should consider the student’s needs and wants in direct relationship to societal needs and wants. He held strong convictions about the impact of one on the other and throughout his academic career, he strived to ensure that all parties received educational experiences and knowledge that would enhance, engage and empower, both the student and society to increasingly higher productive levels.