Analysis On John Dewey's Pragmatic Thinking On Education

John Dewey is a world famous philosopher, psychologist and educator in the world, whose pragmatic thinking on education has produced a wide range of effects, drawn the focuses of academics, and yielded fruitful results. His theoretical system of education thought founds on pragmatic philosophy and be made into practice. But the studies about reasons of the formation and entire process of it are less. This paper mainly expounds the formation of Dewey's education thought on two aspects: one is the historical background, the other is the sources of experience and theory. It also contains its core of contents and the evaluation on its reality and ideality.The essay consists of four chapters except preface and conclusion.Chapter one focuses on the historical background of the formation of Dewey's pragmatic thinking on education. The Civil War (1861-1865) not only realized the country to be unified, expanded the domestic commodity market, but also abolished the slavery in the law, has provided the massive free labor forces for the development of industrial capitalism. The unification has won the relative stabilization of political context for the national further development, in addition Americans rich natural resource, advantageous geographical environment, government's support of political economy, science and technology progress, all these eliminated obstacles from the capitalistic development of the United States, which accelerated the development of the capitalistic society. Until late 19th and early 20th century, the United States became the most powerful economic country of the world, accessed to a whole transitional period. With the continuous development of industrialization and the influx of a large number of immigrants, society requested for much more new specialists, which brought new pressures to education. With Urbanization developing, a mass of social problems came out, Urban education faced an unprecedented challenge. As drawbacks of traditional educational thoughts and theories exposed gradually, scholastic educational thoughts and models had been unable to meet the requirements of social development, the arrival of the new era demanded a new theory of education. Facing with the new situation of social development, massive educational reformers launched a vigorous innovation. They put forward some new teaching ideas, and put it into practice. Dewey's education thought was a new ideological and theoretical education system in new era.Chapter two mainly concerns the source of Dewey's pragmatic thinking on education, including empirical and theoretical sources. When he was a child, Dewey lived in a democratic atmosphere but suffered from the shackles of traditional education. And then he became a teacher, engaged in teaching activities. Those are practical basis of his thoughts. During his university, Dewey focused on learning philosophy, logic and psychology, tried to make pragmatic philosophy common and applied it to other aspects of society. After that, he founded Chicago Psychology School. These subsequently became the source of his education thought.Chapter three briefly discusses the contents of Dewey's pragmatic thinking on education from three parts: first, the nature of education; second, the purpose of education; and third, teaching theory. Dewey not only practices his education ideal in the teaching activity, and devotes in theorizes his own thoughts. From the end of 19th century Dewey started to publish a series of works, like "My Education Creed"(1897), "School And Society"(1899),"Child And Curriculum" (1902),elaborated his own thinking on education theoretically. On the nature of education conception, John Dewey thought that education was life, education was growth, and education was continuous reorganization or transformation of experience. As to the purpose of education, Dewey thought that education has no purpose beyond itself, he proposed a famous idea, "No purpose on education". Essentially,Dewey had his own ideas to establish a democratic society eventually beyond class limitations through education. In terms of teaching theories, Dewey emphasized the teaching methods of child-centered and "learning by doing". In his opinion, the purpose of education was to foster children's ability to adjust to society and the democratic consciousness.Chapter four briefly discusses the reality and ideality of John Dewey's pragmatic thinking on education. Dewey's pragmatic thinking on education holds the extremely important historical situation in the Western history of education, and has had the profound influence to the world. He unified his own theories of education with the American society situation, closed with real life, has very strong reality. That was the huge progress of the United States.The theoretical basis of it is the pragmatic philosophy which has the characteristics of the United States. So it inevitably has the characteristics of reality. At the same time, the main contents of Dewey's pragmatic thinking on education, the role in guiding practice and impact in the world reflected the side of reality. On the contrary, Dewey's education thought has other ideals beyond society that is to establish a democratic society beyond capitalistic society. Therefore, it is certain that there was something beyond society in his theories. In teaching theory, he paid too much attention to the role of practice in the process of children's growth, however, underestimated children's affordability and ability of learning theoretical knowledge system, and made excessive requests about teachers. According to his own ideals, Dewey founded the experimental Chicago elementary school, practiced his own educational ideas, but ended in failure. Likewise, the progressive education campaign, which guided by Dewey's pragmatic thinking on education also failed. Those have fully demonstrated the characteristics of ideal of his educational thoughts.