Title:
John Dewey, 1859-1952: Educator and 'America's
Philosopher'
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Education Report.
See text below
Text:
We had a question from China from a listener who
wanted to know about John Dewey.
John Dewey was an influential thinker and educator.
The New York Times once called him "America's
philosopher."
Larry Hickman is director of the Center for Dewey
Studies at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.
He was not surprised that the question came from
China.
Mister Hickman told us he just returned from two
weeks of meetings in Beijing in December. He and
Chinese educators discussed the close relationship
between Dewey's ideas and those of Confucius.
He also worked with a group of Buddhists who like
Dewey's work very much because it goes along with
some of the ideas of Mahayana Buddhism.
John Dewey described his ideas in books including
"Democracy and Education," "The School and Society"
and "How We Think."
Mister Hickman said Dewey was perhaps the best known
philosopher, educator and public intellectual of the
twentieth century. He was active in many fields,
including education, philosophy, psychology and
humanistic and humanitarian affairs. He was an
important influence in the founding of the American
Association of University Professors and the
American Civil Liberties Union.
He was also influential in the founding of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People, although he himself was white.
John Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont, in
eighteen fifty-nine.
He was influenced by the scientific work of Charles
Darwin. He was also influenced by the work done with
immigrant English learners in Chicago by Jane
Addams. She was a social worker and the first
American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. And
Dewey was influenced by observing his own children.
At the University of Chicago, he founded the
Laboratory School. But Dewey would likely have
disagreed with many current practices in American
education, like the wide use of standardized
testing.
Larry Hickman said Dewey thought that testing had
its place, but that testing should be more like
medical tests. They should be testing for individual
needs, interests and abilities, and not to compare
one student to another.
John Dewey died in nineteen fifty-two. But Dewey
scholar Larry Hickman says his ideas are still being
taught in education schools.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
