Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education

In chapter 16, Dewey examines the way education should enhance a student’s experiences by emphasizing the meaning of this experience through implications. One such way is “normal communication” because it allows for enhancing shared interests and connecting the results with a group (166). In Dewey’s view, history and geography are the two fields particularly suited for amplifying one’s direct, individual experience. History “makes implications explicit,” while geography acts in the same way for “natural connections” (167). The chapter comprises three sections.

1. The Extension of Meaning of Primary Activities

Dewey suggests that a mere physical activity may provide a plethora of meanings. For example, a child and an astronomer looking through telescopes would derive very different meanings from this activity. Deriving meanings means that education is “something else than the manufacture of a tool or the training of an animal” (159). The way learning occurs depends on the way the instructor teaches it. If history is presented as a vast number of statements disconnected from daily life, then that is the way in which it would be perceived by the student. In contrast, history may be formulated in an empathetic, engaging way—as a “body of known facts about the activities and sufferings of the social group with which our own lives are continuous” (161).