John Dewey: implications for schooling.

Abstract

Propositions, whether great and lasting or insignificant and passing, reside in the "guts of the living." Each age rediscovers its Plato, Dickens, Newton, or Dewey. Each age rewrites history, redefines science, develops its own theoretical perspectives. Propositions are tentative, conditional, or relative. They depend on contemporary priorities, and on a personal space and time context. At any future moment propositions may change, perspectives alter, new choices emerge. John Dewey provided for constructive innovation in schooling and the battles about his suggested criteria continue unabated. The purpose here, however, is only to examine some of Dewey's theoretical propositions and their probable implications (1).