John Dewey Summary

MEILLEUR (2005) Jay Martin writes: “Compared with every one of the major persons contributing to American life during Dewey’s time—indeed, compared with most of the minor ones—Dewey has been accorded almost no biographical attention.” He credits George Dykhuizen’s, The Life and Mind of John Dewey (1973) for being Dewey’s only extant biography.” The lack of biographical material on John Dewey is surprising. Meilleur goes into great detail describing Dewey’s transformation that took place about the time he moved to Columbia University. Dewey was said to become very dark even depressed as his son died in Europe the summer before he started at Columbia. Dewey shifted to an aggressive nature particularly concerning politics and the U. S. thoughts on World War I. His views and support of America joining the War effort caused great conflict even among some of his friends and former students. Dewey also moved to more philosophy after his move to Columbia.

John Dewey made several contributions in the areas of Psychology, philosophy, and education. Throughout his life, Dewey wrote over 35 books and published over 815 articles on numerous subjects. He taught at the University of Michigan for almost ten years; then he was a professor at the University of Chicago for ten more, before moving to Columbia University where he taught for a tenure of 26 years at the Teaching College. Dewey also traveled literally all over the world as a guest lecturer spreading his agenda and philosophy. Dewey was a brilliant man with a passive way of deceptively persuading the opinions of men to believe like he did when it comes to philosophy and education. Dewey was respected by his peers and his students but stood out head and shoulders above his contemporaries in the field of education and philosophy.

 

John Dewey Critique

The ironic thing with Dewey is while he believed in free thought and no absolutes – he was a highly educated man, setting at the feet of many lecture style instructors. Then Dewey taught on the college level for over forty years intentionally influencing multitudes of students to be like him.

John Dewey impacted education during his time and now like no other scholar in the modern era. Progressive thought became the accepted norm for nearly fifty years in America as a result of Dewey’s life and propaganda. Even to this day, we are still seeing a profound impact on education in America and abroad. Dewey’s influence on current practices of education particularly methods has been an uphill battle in Christian circles. His philosophical thought is also pervasive throughout the United States and Europe.

Fortunately, the last fifty years have seen somewhat of a shift back-to-basics in educational thought but the effects are still everywhere we turn in education. It is my recommendation that educators, particularly Christian education professionals not only steer clear of John Dewey’s philosophy of education. But also that Christian educators are diligent to be extremely cautious when it comes to modes or methods of education that may seem harmless but do not have a Biblically firm foundation. Secular humanism and postmodern thought are dominating institutes of higher education, Universities, and even secondary schools now more than ever. We as born-again fundamental Christians need to be strong and vigilant not only in our endeavors to train the next generation but also in our responsibility and privilege to spread the Gospel to a needy world without Christ. But be encouraged that people are spiritually hungry and young people today are searching for truth more than ever. The millennial generation is not afraid to ask questions and we should not be afraid to stand and give an answer even in the face of liberal philosophy.

 

 

 

References

Meilleur, Maurice (2005). John Dewey redux. The Antioch Review, 63(1), 173-193.

Lumm, L.W. (1996). A biblical analysis of the educational philosophy expressed by John Dewey

            in his original writings. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Bob Jones University,

Greenville, SC.