biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1859–1952)
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| biography:
| Philosopher, psychologist, and educator, born in Burlington, Vermont, USA. He studied at the University of Vermont and worked as a high-school teacher before taking his PhD at Johns Hopkins. He taught philosophy at the universities of Minnesota and Michigan, and gained some reputation for his book Psychology (1887) before going to the University of Chicago (1894–1904), where he established a Laboratory School to put his educational theories into practice (1896). His best known innovation was what he called learning by ‘directed living’, with an emphasis on workshop-type projects so that learning was combined with concrete activity and practical relevance. Although not the first to promote this kind of schooling, he would long be regarded by Americans as the father of progressive education. After a disagreement with the Chicago administration, he went to Columbia University as professor of philosophy (1904–30). He was by this time gaining a reputation as one of the leading exponents of pragmatism, the school of philosophy that stresses the practical application of ideas. At Columbia, he helped advance the Teachers College into the forefront of American education by imbuing several generations of teachers with his theories of progressive education and pragmatism. When it came to staking out positions on political and international affairs, he did not always make predictable choices, supporting progressive and socialist candidates, then opposing President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. Always opposed to Marxism and Communism, he never abandoned his faith in the individual and democracy. His many books include The School and Society (1899), Experience and Nature (1925), Experience and Education (1938), and Freedom and Culture (1939). He was also an adviser to various countries' educational systems and an officer of various professional societies. As an intellectual he was consulted and quoted on a wide range of issues and played a role in public life that few philosophers in American history have known. |
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