[Mur] Dewey is popular, but difficult for praxis?

Writing Practice 

TOPIC: Why philosophy in education of Dewey is popular, but difficult for real?

John Dewey（1859-1952） is well known educator from USA. 

In 1919, he visited Republic of China and had strong influence on Chinese educators. They translated amount of Dewey’s publication into Chinese. Now, we have a lot of researchers are Dewey’s followers in Taiwan. Dewey is not only an idol, but also an ideal in education in most education of department.

However, philosophy in education of Dewey is difficult for real in school. Each teacher heard Dewey, at least, could say ‘learning by doing’ immediately. And, lecture and test are still playing a big role in student’s daily life.

Dewey’s philosophy in education is non-teleological and student-center. 

That’s the reason that it is difficult for real, especially, in public school system. Education is an activity which could trace back to prehistoric age. As human being, we learn, for living with others. In short, education could help collect experiences and pass on next generations. Therefore, it is an activity of community and for community. A group of people, at least two persons, with same values reach an agreement in some way, so that we educate babies and freshmen to be one of us. Being one of us is a clear aim. Furthermore, it shows education needs standards to evaluate it. Once there has standards, it is impossible to reach fully student-center as Dewey said.

Education is a social contrast. As a contrast, community provides resources and sets up standards to check if these individuals who take resources are one of us. Community needs system to live. Hence, it has strong aim to reach and limited resource to use. Fully student-center would be an unfair contrast between community and individuals. When a community dismisses, individuals need to spend a lot to build a new one. To sum up, philosophy in education of Dewey is a beautiful dream which is difficult for real. However, we still could make our standards more flexible in contrast of communities.