151).
The Educational Philosophy and Definitions of Dewey.
One of Dewey's greatest contributions to education came through his magnum opus, "Democracy and Education," published in 1916. The idea that it could be beneficial for a child to be involved in setting goals and making decisions was a radical concept but definitely a concept that has proven over the past eighty years to be essential experience for democratic living. In it, he presented the idea that the school curriculum becomes actual subject matter to the learner when and if it is used in purposeful activities. It is the situation, not the teacher, school or recitation schedule that makes subject matter of vital concern to the learner (Dewey, 1916). He was just as concerned with the role of the teacher as he was with subject matter. According to Dewey:.
"It is then the business of the educator to see in what direction an experience is heading. There is no point in his being more mature if, instead of using his greater insight to help organize the conditions of the experience of the immature, he throws away his insight . The mature person, to put it in moral terms, has no right to withhold from the young on given occasions whatever capacity for sympathetic understanding his own experience has given him. No sooner, however, are such things said than there is a tendency to react to the other extreme and take what has been said as a plea or some sort of disguised imposition from outside" (1916, p.31).
Dewey's philosophy of education clearly carried the component that defined education as a social function. According to Jackson (1998) Dewey pointed out that what the best and wisest parent wants for their children is what the larger community must desire for all children. In fact, he was convinced that any other standard or ideal for schools is narrow-minded and essentially without value or merit. He also believed that to continue to build educational programs in such autocratic and repetitive ways would ultimately destroy the fundamental ideal of democracy.