John Dewey and the Burden of Ideology

How did progressive become synonymous with dumbing down? John Dewey's ruinous influence on American education. (Also see video: John Dewey and the Kiss of Death.)

http://www.Improve-Education.org

Category:

Education

Tags:

• whole
• word
• socialism
• collectivist
• public
• schools
• John
• Dewey
• illiteracy
• leveling
• phonics
• knowledge
• facts
• dumbing
• down
• fuzzy
• education
• progressive

[BandMan6100]

Total absolute crap. Dewey supported a system where students would be allowed and prodded to think critically...such a system has never been implemented because those in power to not want students to grow up into independent minded adults. The person who posted this is an idiot.

[BruceDeitrickPrice]

@BandMan6100 This is the cover story--well known and often repeated. The true story is that John Dewey and colleagues were socialists, and they believed it was their duty to prepare the US for a socialist future. Dewey declared that a school's primary concern is the social life of the child. This means that they work and play well together. What they learn is secondary. Probably, his followers took his message too far. Still, his doctrine provided a rationale for dumbing down the schools.

[BruceDeitrickPrice]

Please also see my second take on Dewey, the video titled "John Dewey and the Kiss of Death."

[fastws6]

@BruceDeitrickPrice work on Education, you would know that he was as critical of Progressive education as he was the Conservative education.

[BruceDeitrickPrice]

@fastws6 John Dewey was the leader of Progressive Education in US.

[BruceDeitrickPrice]

Bottom line; Dewey was what we would today call a Euro-Socialist, at best. But he couldn't say this too loudly so he drifted into dissembling and lies. He schemed in secret to change American education in ways that no American ever voted for.

[Rocketman740]

Terrible. Amateur bushwackery of Dewey's philosophy. Nonsense ad hominem attacks. There is literally nothing redeeming in this video worth credibly critiquing. The "Phooey on Dewey" essay is even worse.

If you would like a good critique of Dewey and early 20th century American liberalism, try "The Promise of Pragmatism" by John Patrick Diggins. This video and the website of this author are intellectually fraudulent.

[bhayter128]

It is clear that the creator of this video has not closely read Dewey's writings. This video is far more concerned with polemicizing Dewey than in trying to understand what Dewey's views on education and learning really were. Before any thoughtful rebuttal can possibly be made, a thought critique must first present itself.

[syllablelisp]

Wanting free and applicable education for everyone and frowning upon the classist methods of institutional education!? How dare he!! What a horrible person to tell me that just because a painting is in a museum doesn't make it art. That scoundrel helped me to learn the basics of thinking for myself and how to apply the things I've learned. Evil socalist indeed!

[BandMan6100]

@BruceDeitrickPrice

Really? So how does simply memorizing a bunch of "facts" help one to learn about the world? Facts are mutable by the way...I am not saying they do not exist. I am saying they can change. It used to be a "fact" that the earth was the center of the Universe. What if no one had ever questioned that? The facts change and people must by raised to think and QUESTION ALL FACTS. Otherwise there can be no progress.

[odelisk8]

idiot

[fastws6]

@BruceDeitrickPrice Instead, you take a bunch of his quotes, which even speak volumes out of their context, and you misrepresent them, seemingly intentionally, and then you claim that they are just nonsense - but wait - why are they nonsense? Because you said so???? HA!!!! This is the mark of a truly uncultivated, anti-intellectual mind. You fail to recognize the basic distinction between unsupported belief and knowledge. But it's ok for you - you said so.

[fastws6]

@BruceDeitrickPrice Instead, you take a bunch of his quotes, which even speak volumes out of their context, and you misrepresent them, seemingly intentionally, and then you claim that they are just nonsense - but wait - why are they nonsense? Because you said so???? HA!!!! This is the mark of a truly uncultivated, anti-intellectual mind. You fail to recognize the basic distinction between unsupported belief and knowledge. But it's ok for you - you said so.

[fastws6]

@BruceDeitrickPrice Have you even read Dewey? Do you even know that he was one of the culminating figures of American Pragmatism - that this rich philosophical tradition is most concerned with action and consequence - and not the "Ideal?" Nowhere in Dewey's Educational theory was there otiose ideology - if you would have read (I'm assuming you didn't read Dewey because if you did, then your abject failure to understand and comprehend a single line of his thought is painfully apparent) Dewey's