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A new look at john Dewey is necessary:
Any library with John Dewey on the stacks should consider this contemporary introspection into this Philosopher, Educator and aesthetition of incredible prolifity. A post-modern generation is precisely the audienceaddressed here, and would be frustrated by earlier works seeking to offerguiding light to the unique creative mind of John Dewey, who is no easyread. Though this collection is highly academic, I doubt anyone would gothere without such an inclination to begin with. ... Read more

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Arguably the most influential thinker on education in the twentieth century, Dewey's contribution lies along several fronts. His attention to experience and reflection, democracy and community, and to environments for learning have been seminal. ... Read more

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Dewey's most thorough and captivating work.
After deciding to work my way through every Dewey book I could still find in print, I finally got into this one. Dewey's other works are good, but this one is great.

This book is, minimally, essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the epistemology underlying Dewey's educational theory. Or, in fact, any of his other theories.

More than that, it is possibly the best single articulation of pragmatic philosophy; where William James applied pragmatic method to specific issues of morals and metaphysics, Dewey has here expounded on many of the broad implications of that method. The central ideas of this book are the inclusion of quality and ends in natural existence, which are shown to have broad implications for topics such as scientific inquiry, theories of value, and aesthetics. This is one of the best works of epistemology I have ever read. Best of all, it is rigorous and wide-ranging without becoming a System.

At most, it may be the most important work of philosophy ever written in the history of the universe. I'm not going to go that far, though.

Experience Recovered! An Embodied, Naturalistic, Empiricism
In this excellent read, John Dewey further exploits his concept of "experience" as foundational to human knowledge. Dewey's concept of "experience" represents a breakthrough in empiricism, as"experience" for Dewey is not merely "senseimpressions" as it was for earlier empiricists. Dewey's"experience" is an iterative process and thoroughlly embodied;the qualities of each individual experience become functioning parts ofone's experience in a larger sense, serving to transform the qualities onewill experience under certain conditions in the future. Fot the sake ofillustration, consider a child's first experience of fire: it is beautiful,exciting, and enticing, until the child gets burned: then each subsequentexperience of fire contains an element of fear and danger, as the previousexperience transforms the experiences to come.

Dewey uses this conceptof experience to provide a theory he calls "naturalisticempiricism"; a pragmatic theory of knowledge that provides a basis forhis later inquiries into knowledge and human experience. His treatment ofthe ontogeny of knowledge provides a compelling, thoroughly materialistic,and Darwinian account of the development of thinking in the human animalwithout lapsing into an isolating solipsism or into a fanciful dualism. Theprevalence of Hegelian philosophy in Dewey's earlier philosophic work andhis training as a psychologist provide him with an eye for solidmethodology, a powerful sense of the roleof social structure in humanthinking, and a talent for synthesis.

Experience and Nature is thereforea profoundly social text as well, where Dewey explores the role that socialexperience plays in the development of knowledge and communication as humanattributes, or more to the point, as human activities. I have found thisbook to be a profound antidote to the despair and irony in writers such asKierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, and Rorty; the meaning and scope ofexistence is redeemed on an extremely individual level through communityand relationships. This book is highly recommended for those with an eyefor postmodern philosophy and theories of embodiment (Dewey is frequentlycompared to Maurice Merleau-Ponty), as it shares much with the hermeneutictradition, while remaining grounded in a very scientific perspective. ... Read more

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This is the first collection of essays to evaluate John Dewey's pragmatist philosophy from a feminist perspective. The variety of feminist interpretations offered here ranges from Jane Addams's praise for his collegial efforts to resolve the problems of the inner city to contemporary comparisons of his approach with Addams's own critique of capitalism as patriarchal. In between are essays assessing Dewey's contributions to feminist theory and practice both in his lifetime and in regard to contemporary feminist approaches to education, subjectivity, objectivity and truth, and social and political philosophy.

At a time when feminists are questioning and developing alternatives to the scientistic value-free inquiry advocated by logical positivism, the myth of detached observation informing the epistemological turn, rationalistic ethics, and the model of an unattached, nonrelational subject, this book reminds us of Dewey's early and passionate opposition to the same assumptions and his reconstruction of philosophy as a "method of moral and political diagnoses and prognosis." It has often been remarked that Dewey's pragmatism provides a genuine alternative to the usual masculinist biases of Western philosophy, and the various essays in this book develop this claim more extensively.

Contributors, besides the editor, are Jane Addams, Ana M. Martínez Alemán, Paula Droege, Marilyn Fischer, Eugenie Gatens-Robinson, Judith Green, Lisa Heldke, Ellen Condliffe Lagemann, Erin McKenna, Marjorie Miller, Elizabeth Karmarck Minnich, and Shannon Sullivan. ... Read more

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a glimpse into the philosopher's personal struggle
Prof. Jackson takes up the evolution of John Dewey's philosophy by focusing on the shifts in perspective and the shift in terminology in successive rewrites Dewey produced for his work "Experience and Nature."

The voice Prof. Jackson uses is that of a friend. Someone who has taken up philosophy as a profession, and who reflects on the fruitfulness of the endeavor.

Dewey scholars will find much new and interesting to contemplate. And I came away with a fresh sense of compassion for John Dewey, the human person struggling to understand.

More than this, however, is Prof. Jackson's personal and personable thoughts about his own experience with this work. What happens here is, in effect, a glimpse into the mind of a philosopher who struggles to get a glimpse into the mind of a philosopher. With both efforts directed towards an understanding of the profession of philosophy.

And where we end up is with a good insight into the very human and very well-intended process of DOING philosophy humanely.

Thank-you, Prof. Jackson. ... Read more

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A comprehensive look at how John Dewey's ethics can inform environmental issues. ... Read more

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Tapping archival sources and Dewey's extensive correspondence,Dalton reveals that Dewey had close personal and intellectual ties to scientistsand scholars that were influential in forming the mature expression of histhought. Dalton traces the not-always-smooth pathways that led Dewey to shed hisCalvinist upbringing to transform Hegelian phenomenology into a science of mind,to challenge Freudian psychology, and to articulate the central concerns of naturalism and pragmatism.Dewey's relationships with F. M. Alexander, HenriMatisse, Niels Bohr, Myrtle McGraw, and Lawrence K. Frank, among others, showhow Dewey drew upon these collaborations to disperse pragmatism throughoutAmerican thought and culture. ... Read more

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becoming john dewey; not everyman's book
Thomas C. Dalton's book on John Dewey philosophy and its fortunes in American philosophical and scientific circles in the twentieth century is essentially a job in rehabilitation, not scholarship. Dalton is only interested in jousting with various philosophers, active either while Dewey was alive or since his death in 1952; as such it fails as a work of history, for it is advocacy and rehabilitation, at once sentimental and turgid. ... Read more

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Written in a manner accessible to non-specialists, this book provides an introduction to all areas central to John Dewey's philosophy: aesthetics, social and political philosophy, education, the philosophy of religion, and theory of knowledge. Boisvert situates Dewey as a thinker who could appreciate the advance of science while remaining an "empirical naturalist" committed to the revelatory powers of lived experience. ... Read more

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John Dewey (1859-1952) believed that learning was active and schooling unnecessarily long and restrictive.His idea was that children came to school to do things and live in a community which gave them real, guided experiences which fostered their capacity to contribute to society.For example, Dewey believed that students should be involved in real-life tasks and challenges:maths could be learnt via learning proportions in cooking or figuring out how long it would take to get from one place to another by mule history could be learnt by experiencing how people lived, geography, what the climate was like, and how plants and animals grew, were important subjects Dewey had a gift for suggesting activities that captured the center of what his classes were studying.Dewey's education philosophy helped forward the "progressive education" movement, and spawned the development of "experiential education" programs and experiments. ... Read more

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One of the best philosophical socialist books
You wouldn't think it, but this little baby packs a huge radical punch. Written in 1929 after the Depression set in it's Dewey's testament on what he thought society would have to do to solve that kind of systemic problem and survive. What comes out from Dewey's experiential philosophy is a radical critique of individualism that fit's into the category today of "Council Communism" or "Autonomous Marxism", meaning socialism which is concieved according to Marxist type theory but is realized according to radically democratic and workerist means. A forgotten gem, read this and then absorb the liberatory potential of the rest of Dewey's many philosophical works. ... Read more

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The first book-length study of Dewey's extraordinarytext. ... Read more

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Excellent and thought-provoking
This book has had a huge influence on my thinking.In clear prose Jackson lays out the phenomelogical approach of Dewey to art.It took me awhile to grasp where this was going, but when I did, it was trememdously rewarding.Highly recommended.

make and do
John Dewey and the Lessons of Art by Philip W. Jackson:
Jackson argues that Dewey may never really have enjoyed art for arts sake but dealt with art as something to explore how his philosophical principles should be applied to it. Among the interesting themes in this book concern the laboratory school's growth out of Dewey's goal to increase the attraction of education to more students. Most young people wanted to get to making and doing and work and did not have the interest in more abstract learning. The laboratory school was an attempt to get students to "make and do" but focus on abstract learning doing it. Jackson examines the dilemma this causes in that teachers tend to do less abstract learning and overall learning declines as a result, and that Dewey tried to work with this dilemma but didn't quite get the message out. It sounds a lot like the issues educators face today. If you keep the students interested will they be learning what they need to? Art is one way to make and do in the class room but does it achieve what classical education about art does? ... Read more

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Book Description

This text is an intriguing alternative to the steady diet of how to texts that dominate educational readings.
Ranae Stetson, Texas Christian University

At a time when critical-reflective teaching is constantly in jeopardy, John Dewey and the Art of Teaching is very refreshing. Both prospective and experienced teachers should find this work helpful if they are serious about realizing democratic values. Policy makers need to take the time to read this work to be reminded of the core values of democratic education.
John Portelli, University of Toronto, Canada

The authors, by championing the relationship of art to education, offer a much needed counterbalance to our societys over-reliance on standardized testing. I enthusiastically endorse this work and would readily use it in both undergraduate social foundations of education and masters level philosophy of education courses.
Tony Johnson, West Chester University

At last we have a volume that beckons the uninitiated reader into a study of Deweys significant ideas about the art of teaching. The authors demonstrate great intellectual integrity in describing these ideas while expressing them in practical, even elegant prose.
Jackie Blount, Iowa State University

This book translates Deweyan theory and practice into common-sense, readable, and lucid language. It extends and challenges thinking about the work of teaching, the larger contexts in which it occurs, and the many roles of teachers as change agents. It will also promote novel ways of thinking about teaching for those entering the professionand for those who strive to teach more thoughtfully.
Joe DeVitis, University of Louisville

John Dewey and the Art of Teaching: Toward Reflective and Imaginative Practice is an engaging and accessible introduction to the art of teaching as seen through the eyes of John Dewey. Authors Douglas J. Simpson, Michael J. B. Jackson, and Judy C. Aycock provide a lucid interpretation of the complexities and art of teaching in contemporary classrooms. In addition, they discuss, apply, and question the practical implications of Deweys ideas about the art of teaching for beginning and practicing teachers.

Throughout the book, the reader reflects on the role of the teacher as artist, orchestral conductor, lover, wise mother, navigator, gardener, pioneer, social servant, engineer, curriculum builder, group leader, composer, and wise physician. At the heart of the discussion is the desire to support teachers in their pursuit of thoughtful and innovative teaching. In addition, the book encourages policy makers and educational leaders to help create conditions in districts, schools, and classrooms that value reflective and imaginative teachers who are free to think and create as they educate each student in and for democratic communities.

Key Features

• Chapters begin with an epigraph by Dewey, and also include quotes from Dewey and questions for reflection and discussion
Activities include creating a snapshot of a teacher by using the ideas discussed, analyzing ones own strengths and challenges by engaging in an introspective moment, and considering reflective questions about the ideas presented
A series of figures throughout the book summarize, clarify, and illustrate ideas
Readers can record concluding thoughts for each chapter under the heading A Summative Exercise: The Artistic Teacher

John Dewey and the Art of Teaching is perfectly suited as a text for undergraduate and graduate courses such as introduction to teaching, educational foundations, and philosophy of education. Beginning and experienced teachers will also find a wealth of ideas to apply in their classrooms.