Evaluation of Principles
and Practices
Arielle Schoen
Principle of Growth
 Approach of those guiding experiment was biological and
functional—growth is main characteristic of life at all levels
 Study of development of early infancy was the key to finding
out this principle
 Mr. Dewey’s three factors of rhythmical, unified labor:
Sensory-stimulus, central connection/idea, and muscular
response
 These ideas function in a circuit to maintain, reinforce, and
transform the act
Principle of Growth
 Of the three factors, idea links the sensory-stimuli with
motor-response
 Idea is the meaning of an act
 Habits are then built out of many acts
 Intelligence can control the original impulse, interpret
sensory-stimuli, reinforce or transform, and direct a
motor-response into an intelligent action
Principle of Growth
 Every individual acts to reach a desired end
 Every act involves a choice—a preference for one
result of the action rather than another
 Choice is made either on imitation and obedience to
tradition or on individual preference to consequences
 Conflict of impulsive tendencies is also state of
emotional disturbance
Principle of Growth
 Mr. Dewey’s theory: when cooperative action is not
achieved by thought and will, the deed represents
whichever self has proved stronger and is not a
complete act representing one’s whole self.
 Paragraph p. 417
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY4etXWYS84
Conditions Necessary to Growth in
the Formative Period
 Two psychological assumptions in The Dewey School’s
theory and guiding practices that are different from
traditional schools :
 1) needs, powers, and interests of growing children are
unlike that of maturity
 2) but children utilize same general conditions as adult
in moral/intellectual development
Conditions Necessary to Growth in
the Formative Period
 Children need freedom to experiment and investigate
 Make many contacts with people and things to deepen
range of knowledge and experience
 However, ability to think, act intelligently, and utilize
self-control are not on adult level
 Interests lie primarily in activities—like to observe
through senses and muscular effort
Conditions Necessary to Growth in
the Formative Period
 Child passes through stages of growth
 Both children and adults solve problems by
 1) selecting relevant materials and choosing methods
 2) adapting these materials
 3) by all experimenting and testing that accompanies
effort
Growing Consciousness of
Relation of Means to End
 Dewey School stages of growth:
 Early Childhood is impulsive
 Resulting from trial and error plus experimentation
process, child begins to stop and think about actions
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGYs4KS_djg
Scientific Approach to
Education
 In education there is no need for consideration of
values
 Three basic ideas:
 1) Only way to use science is to apply it something
already existing
 2) Various processes and functions of education can be
separated from one another
 3) Possibility to isolate and rate mental ability by certain
tests and measurements
Competition Vs. Cooperation
in Education
 Schools prepare children for a competitive world
 In public schools, children work primarily by themselves
and are taught to compete with their peers
 Dewey School does opposite—places children in a
social setting
Relation of the Dewey School to
Present Progressive Schools
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J16U7Cn2kbQ
 Which do you find better—American traditional schools
or the Dewey School?
 How can we as future educators implement the Dewey
School’s foundations in our on classrooms?