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Mr. Dewey believed that the core curriculum should encompass the students’ interests.
John Dewey approached education with a hands-on, cohesive philosophy, rather than teaching isolated topics which prevented learners from grasping the whole of knowledge.

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Pragmatism is the philosophy of considering practical consequences or real effects to be vital components of both meaning and truth.
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One important aspect is fallibilism
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Fallibilism is the philosophical doctrine that all claims of knowledge could, in principle, be mistaken. Some fallibilists go further, arguing that absolute certainty about knowledge is impossible
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Wikipedia (2009)

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Dewey did not consider himself a pragmatist, but rather referred to his philosophy as Instrumentalism.
Instrumentalism: concepts and theories are measured as useful, not by whether they are true or false, but by how effective they are in explaining and predicting phenomena
Wikipedia (2009)

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Students need to learn practical, pragmatic daily-life skills in order to build a better society.
Dewey wanted students to learn through experience and to think and reflect critically on their experiences.

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Math could be learned by cooking, traveling, building things
History could be learned by experiencing field trips, museums, replicas
Reading can be learned through independently-selected literature

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Vocational Technical School
Use of Scientific Method in classrooms
Kinesthetic Learning (role playing, nontraditional learning techniques)
Integrating Technology into lessons

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