John Dewey-Child Development Theorist

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Dee Mosley Child Development Theorist John Dewey John Dewy was born in 1859, in Burlington, Vermont and died in 1952. He was a prominent, American philosopher and was considered one of the foremost educators of his day. Dewey graduated from the University of Vermont and taught high school for two years before going to John Hopkins for graduate school. After receiving his PHD, Dewey taught at the University of Michigan and later the University of Chicago where he conducted the laboratory school. Our text book states that Dewey was the first real American influence on American education. John Dewy believed that children were valuable and childhood was an important part of their lives. Much of John Dewey’s ideas regarding education stemmed from his own childhood and his role as a parent. Dewey was bored with his own schooling because he disliked the method of passive learning. As a parent, Dewey allowed his children to play in the same room in which adults were socializing in which was very forward thinking for the time. Dewey was noted for his school of thought known as pragmatism, which favored a more natural approach to learning rather than a passive approach. One of Dewey’s most notable beliefs was that he felt education should be integrated with life and should provide a training ground for life. He has many notable quotes and I’ve included a few below: The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action. Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results. Education is a social process. Education is growth. Education is, not a preparation for life; education is life itself. To find out what one is fitted to do, and
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