Democracy As Experience

Experience is the core and most basic concept of Dewey's educational theory.Dewey believes that experience stems f:rom two main principles:interactivity,the interaction between people and the environment;continuity,the effect that experience has on the future of an individual.In a nutshell,a person's current experience can be seen as the interaction between a person's past experience and the current situation.Dewey's ideal is to achieve a democratic society.Dewey's democracy is a way of uniting life,a way of sharing experiences.Dewey's goal is to accumulate democratic experience through this democratic life and to develop all aspects of human beings.The experience of democracy has two main characteristics:interactivity,the strengthening of human-to-human contact and society-to-society contact,enhancing mutual understanding and sharing of experience;continuity,the democracy is not once and for all,and must be re-explored,explored,transformation and restructuring.The goal of Dewey's democratic education is to develop the habit of democracy.The habits of democracy mainly include:the habit of equal communication;the habit of imagination;the habit of cooperation and compromise;the habit of analysis and criticism.Dewey made a series of transformations in education to realize the habit of democracy.First of all,to achieve the continuity of the curriculum is to achieve the integration of the curriculum and apply the knowledge learned in the class to the extracurricular;secondly,the democratization of the school is the exchange and interaction between teachers and teachers,between teachers and students,between parents and schools;finally,transforming the relationship between schools and society means breaking the gap between schools and society and playing the role of schools in social transformation.Dewey's democratic thoughts as an experience provide important reference for the development of ideological and political education in China,including implementing the continuity of the curriculum,realizing the democratization of the school,and openning up the isolation between the school and the society.