The School and Society & The Child and the Curriculum [Paperback]

John Dewey (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0486419541 | ISBN-13: 978-0486419541 | Publication Date: July 18, 2001

These two short, influential books represent the earliest authoritative statement of Dewey's revolutionary emphasis on education as an experimental, child-centered process. He declares that we must make schools an embryonic community life and stresses the importance of the curriculum as a means of determining the environment of the child. 4 halftones and 4 charts.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Dewey (1859-1952), a founder of the philosophical school of pragmatism, was the outstanding thinker in American educational reform during the first half of the twentieth century. His many works on psychology, education, and philosophy include: On Education: Selected Writings, also published by the University of Chicago Press. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications (July 18, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486419541
• ISBN-13: 978-0486419541
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #227,912 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #16 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Nonfiction > Education > Education Theory > Philosophy & Social Aspects
  • #37 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > General

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What to teach, December 12, 2002

By 

Anita Ritz (Delta, Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The School and Society and The Child and the Curriculum (Centennial Publications of The University of Chicago Press) (Paperback)

Dewey, a profound contributor to the field of education, displays some of his beliefs of the best methods to teach children in The Child and the Curriculum. To begin Dewey's discussion, the child's world is examined. In this examining, a sense of how the child's world operates is formed. Children learn through the process of experiencing things, life. In this book Dewey, finds that the schools in which children are educated contradict their very learning style by nature. "The child's life is an integral, a total one," (p.183, 1902). The way the school disseminates the curriculum is not the most optimal method for students to learn.
A child's life collects all the experiences, thus the child learns. Dewey postulates a change in the formula for teaching children, the curriculum. Why change the curriculum? As Dewey states, children need to be intertwined in the process of doing. Children will learn by doing, making clothes to wear, furniture to sit on, and growing food to eat. The idea of the separate subject area is a key area Dewey analyzes because of how children learn. When a child wants to build a chair to sit on, they examine disciplines across the realm of mathematics, science, and language skills while building the chair. Instead of separating this activity into different disciplines, it is woven throughout the activity. Throughout this book, it is stated that their needs to be a link to what the child is learning and what the child sees as a benefit to themselves.
As an educator, it is important to be exposed to varying ideas as to how the school systems have functioned and are functioning today. There are ideas in this book that a pre-service or current educator should consider during their teaching career. Are Dewey's ideas relevant for today's society? I believe this is a question one has to answer for themselves, construct your own meaning.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Dewey classic - wait, two classics in one!, May 12, 2006

By 

J. Stoner "Plants and Books" (Parkville, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The School and Society & The Child and the Curriculum (Paperback)

This great book contains two Dewey classics: (1) The School and Society; and, (2) The Child and the Curriculum. This text is like most Dewey works: concise and to the point. This text focuses on the effects and the power that teachers should have in affecting student lives. There is much discussion on Dewey's classic "educative" experiences and how education should be hands-on learning. Dewey also asserts that curriculum should emulate real life challenges and "occupations" of everyday life. Learning occurs in doing and not in repeating facts and figures on multiple-choice tests.

We wonder why the greatest young minds are thrown into math and science courses instead of being encouraged to explore the arts and music. This book continues to show why coursework should not be limited to multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, and other methods of factoid memorization but rather coursework should include the exploration of skill-sets and also how the curriculum should provide a catalyst for knowledge and skill exploration.

Like most Dewey books, this should be required reading for all education programs and for all educators. Considered by many to be the only true American philosopher, Dewey once again provides a clear look at why education in America is sub-par in quality and effectiveness.

Also recommended: "Experience and Education," by John Dewey.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why going to school ?, September 13, 2000

By 

"blemen_s" (Decatur, Georgia United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The School and Society and The Child and the Curriculum (Centennial Publications of The University of Chicago Press) (Paperback)

From a high school student's point of view, reading Dewey couldn't provide something else than hope for educational systems, most of which, despite the efforts of making a school a more living atmosphere, organizations still remain too mechanical in learning procedures and detached from social applications regarding the capabilities they serve.

Originally from Cameroon, I've had the opportunity to explore three educational systems from different cultural influence each. It was an advantage that surely opened my mind to different perspectives by interacting with different cultures in different social contexts, but especially carried me out to realize how the so called "education" - in general, but in high school in particular - shortly addresses fundamental needs as much individually as socialy, since people tend to ignore its essential functions or misunderstand the concepts it involves, precisely because their implications are so general that they shouldn't be analyzed in separated contexts, school and society, as far as they are, with respect, one a component of the other but the other being the expression of the first one in a long term.

By observing both components as a whole, Dewey proposes a model that doesn't necessarily apply to actual issues or give factual solutions, but at least redefines "education" by integrating inherent aspects to human nature in its double acception - as a group as much as an individual -, which reveals the values traditional education still mostly hides.

I delibarately took the initiative of question what high school didn't explained to me, and probably often forget to ask itself. In what ways education serves people in the aim of blooming personally and socially ? which role schools are therefore supposed to play and in which patterns ? The questions are so simple that the answers appear obvious. In fact, they should be when the problematic is carefully put. this is the reason most people can get it wrong and sometimes don't even try to question what is already established. Dewey was an excellent starting point for my research and I recommend it to EVERYONE, not especially those concerned with education because it shouldn't be a matter of a restricted segment of people. Education is everywhere. Sorry for my english :)