TET Notes - Educational Thoughts of John Dewey

 

Educational Thoughts

      Of   John Dewey

 

Aims of Education

 

v Education should help an individual to establish those principles and standards that are immediate importance and value to him.

 

v Education should be able to equip the child to earn his livelihood.

 

v To equip the individual as be too able to test the truth and utility of values that are established through his education by experiments and examination.

 

v Education should be capable of making a child of leaving those standards and wishes whose satisfaction may hinder the economic efficiency of others.

 

v Education should be capable of stopping the children from trying to satisfy those desires and wishes whose fulfilment will directly and indirectly disturb others.

 

v School should preserve continue and re-build the activity with which the child is familiar at home. It should be natural extension of home.

 

v School should teach at least one vocation which may be helpful to them in their actual life in earning their livelihood. The vocation should be in accordance with the requirements of society.

 

v School should give moral education through social conjoint activities.

 

v School should be the reflection of society. It should change according to the situation.   

 

Curriculum

 

v Curriculum should bring the disciplines together to focus on solving problems in an interdisciplinary way.

 

v It should be predetermined on the basis of the interest and experience of the child and should be in accordance with the social requirements.

 

v The curriculum must follow the progressive organisation of knowledge consisting of educative experience and problems.

 

v Educational experience is like a creativity which leads to further experiences.

 

v Subjects in curriculum should be organized according children’s utility.

 

v Activities are directed by the problems of the actual life from the curriculum.

 

v Curriculum should be constructed keeping in view the innate tendencies, interests and capabilities of the child.

 

Teaching Method

 

v The method of teaching are reflected in his work, ‘How we think’ and ‘Interest an effort in Education’.

 

v The best methods of teaching, according to Dewey, are hands – on problem solving, experimenting, and projects, often having students work in groups.

 

v He believed that learners should apply their knowledge to new learners; he believed that learners should apply their knowledge to real situations through experimental enquiry.

 

v The methods should aim at co-ordinating the subjects with the activities and life.

 

 

Teacher

 

v He treats the teacher to be the servant of the society whose duty is to lay foundation of a social life.

 

v The teacher should create such an atmosphere in the school that may lead to the development of the social personality of the child.

 

v The educators to be so important that he calls them God’s representative on earth.

 

v The educator must try to engage the children in activities that compel them to think and reason things for themselves.

 

 

Student

 

v He was of the opinion that while planning education, we should keep in mind the psychological and social aspects of the children and their needs.

 

Discipline

 

v Discipline is an internal power which inclines man to think and behave according to social norms.

 

v For the development of this power or quality, he emphasized on the need of democratic environment.

 

v The children in such an environment are under no pressure.

 

v The children in such an environment are free to select activities according to their interests, aptitudes, abilities and needs and to execute them freely.

 

v Another feature of democratic environment is love, sympathy and co-operation.

 

v He has clarified that no question arises for the child to become indiscipline in such an environment.

 

v According to him self-discipline is the true discipline.