Democracy and Education · Chapter
III: Applications in Education explained
Dewey argues that educational aims are not abstract ideals but practical guides rooted in the concrete activities and needs of the individual learner.
What happens
Dewey argues that educational aims are not abstract ideals but practical guides rooted in the concrete activities and needs of the individual learner. He compares the educator to a farmer who must work with existing conditions, emphasizing that aims should be flexible, derived from observation, and translated into methods that cooperate with the student's own capacities. He warns against externally imposed, rigid, or overly general ends, advocating for a democratic recognition of the intrinsic value of each growing experience.
Themes in this chapter
Education as Life and Growth
Dewey emphasizes that education is a continuous process of growth, not preparation for a remote future, and that aims must be rooted in the present activities of the learner.
Critique of Traditional Curriculum
The chapter criticizes externally imposed, rigid aims that ignore individual capacities and the concrete situation, advocating for flexible, observation-based aims.
Experience and Learning by Doing
Dewey's analogy of the farmer and the educator highlights learning through active engagement with conditions, and aims that translate into methods of cooperation with student activities.
Characters to notice
- Plato
Referenced indirectly through the discussion of fixed, externally imposed aims that neglect individual capacities, contrasting with Dewey's emphasis on democratic and intrinsic growth.
- Rousseau
Implied in the critique of preparation theory and the emphasis on following the natural activities and needs of the child.
- Aristotle
Referenced through the discussion of aims as practical foresight and the connection between means and ends, echoing Aristotelian teleology.
- Herbart
Mentioned in the context of externally imposed aims and the teacher's lack of freedom, critiquing Herbartian methods.
- John Locke
Alluded to in the discussion of habits and acquired instincts as part of the individual's intrinsic activities.
Key passages
“It is as absurd for the latter to set up his 'own' aims as the proper objects of the growth of the children as it would be for the farmer to set up an ideal of farming irrespective of conditions.”
Just as a farmer cannot ignore soil and climate, an educator cannot impose aims without considering the child's actual needs and environment.
Dewey uses the farmer analogy to argue that educational aims must be grounded in concrete conditions, not abstract ideals.
“Education as such has no aims. Only persons, parents, and teachers, etc., have aims, not an abstract idea like education.”
Education itself is not a goal-oriented entity; only the individuals involved in the process have purposes that vary with each child and situation.
Dewey emphasizes that aims are personal and contextual, not universal or fixed.
“The vice of externally imposed ends has deep roots. Teachers receive them from superior authorities; these authorities accept them from what is current in the community. The teachers impose them upon children.”
Externally imposed aims come from a chain of authority—from community to administrators to teachers to students—stifling genuine engagement.
Dewey critiques the hierarchical imposition of aims, which undermines the teacher's and student's intelligence.