International Dimention of John Dewey’s Pedagogy: Lessons for Tomorrow

Abstract

The chapter deals with international reputation of John Dewey’s pedagogy in different cultural contexts in the 20th century. The actuality of the ideas of this outstanding American philosopher and educator is evident as his model of society- and child-oriented school based on the idea of communication and cooperation still attracts many educational theoreticians and practitioners. The chapter shows how Dewey’s educational ideas were digested in many cultural contexts. So, the chapter contributes to the problem of educational transfer. Dewey’s appeal to develop reflective capacities of teachers and to overcome dogmatic thinking is still vital in Russia. Any school reform depends on the teacher’s competence. Innovative search in education in many countries is progressing only thanks to innovative teachers. For Dewey who thought of school as a co-society of researchers the basic elements of educational paradigm were the school, the child and the society. The conditions for making these three elements meaningful were “democracy”, “growth” and “experience”. Learning by doing has become very important as well as the creation of educative atmosphere by means of museum pedagogy and art and music education. Developing a real citizen of a democratic society was also Dewey’s dream. Dewey could implement his educational program in his Laboratory school at the University of Chicago (1896–1904) that became a pioneer of laboratory school movement and stimulated innovative search in European countries, including Russia, in Eastern (Japan, China, Turkey) and Latin American ones (Mexico, Chili, Cuba, Brazil, Argentina). Of particular interest is the part in the chapter that describes the perception of Dewey’s pedagogy in Russia where reputation of Dewey was changing from “the best philosopher of contemporary school” (Stanislav Shatzky in 1920s) to “the enemy of all progressive mankind” (in Stalin time, late 1930s). The materials of the chapter crush the existing ideological myth of Dewey created in Soviet Russia.