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ag rudWelcome

JDS aims to foster intelligent inquiry into pressing social problems of our time, especially pertaining to the place and function of education in resolving such problems, as well as to share, discuss, and disseminate the results of such inquiries. JDS is also a space for building and sustaining the networks of students and scholars of the philosophy of John Dewey and American Pragmatism. 

Click the “Follow” button in the lower right-hand corner of the page to keep track of JDS events and news, and upcoming conferences and meetings where pragmatist scholars and educators are convening.

Thanks for visiting!
AG Rud, President

Join

If you would like to join the JDS, please click on “Membership“.

New members of the John Dewey Society will receive two classic books—thanks to the Tanner Foundation.*  The books include: John Dewey’s The Sources of a Science of Education and Dan Tanner’s Crusade for Democracy: Progressive Education at the Crossroads. Dan Tanner’s book provides a detailed history of the John Dewey Society.

*Applies to U.S./Domestic members due to high cost of International shipping

Announcements

Call for Proposals: Emerging Scholars Panel

Theme — Dewey in/and China: Cultural Transformation & Progressive Education in International Settings Today

The John Dewey Society calls for paper proposals for its panel for emerging scholars to be held at its annual meeting in conjunction with the American Educational Research Association meeting in Toronto in April 5-6, 2019.

The submission deadline is March 10, 2019

For more information, download the Call for Proposals



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Invitation to Centennial Colloquium on Dewey: Then and Now

The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools invites you to participate in the Centennial Colloquium on Dewey: Then and Now conference. The conference commemorates the 100th anniversary of a transformative two-year trip to China made by University of Chicago Laboratory Schools founder John Dewey. The conference will take place on May 2-4, 2019 in Chicago, IL.

For more information, visit the conference webpage.

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NEW Book: Moral Principles in Education and My Pedagogic Creed by John Dewey

Contemporary political and socioeconomic conditions largely characterized by corruption and inequity have added new urgency to recurring calls for reorienting American public schools to their historic purpose: educating a citizenry both equipped and motivated to serve as the ultimate guardians of democracy. In these two brief books, Dewey offers readers both the motivation to engage in the struggle for a new emphasis on educating for democratic citizenship and the guidance necessary to translate his theory into effective practice.

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NEW Book: The Role of the Arts in Learning: Cultivating Landscapes of Democracy

We would like to announce a new, edited book by Jay Hanes and Eleanor Weisman titled, The Role of the Arts in Learning: Cultivating Landscapes of Democracy.

Jay Hanes and Eleanor Weisman’s new book is grounded in philosophy from John Dewey and Maxine Greene. It sheds light on difficulties and practicalities of examining culture and politics within the realm of interdisciplinary education. Providing both theoretical and concrete examples of the importance of a contemporary arts education, this book offers imaginative ways the arts and sciences intersect with democratic learning and civic engagement. Chapters focus on education in relation to diversity, apprenticeship, and civic engagement; neuroscience and cognition; urban aesthetic experience and learning; and science and art intelligence.Facebooktwittermail

NEW Book: Democracy and Education with a Critical Introduction by Patricia H. Hinchey

With a Critical Introduction by noted scholar Patricia H. Hinchey, Myers Education Press will release the newest edition of John Dewey’s Democracy and Education in April 2018.

Some hundred years after John Dewey worked to illuminate what it means to educate and how public education serves as the bedrock of democracy, his seminal Democracy and Education speaks urgently not only to critical contemporary educational issues but to contemporary political issues as well. As mania for testing forces a steadily narrowing curriculum, Dewey explains why democracy cannot “flourish” if “the chief influences in selecting subject matter of instruction are utilitarian ends narrowly conceived for the masses.” As such utilitarian subject matter is increasingly placed online, isolating individual students and their electronic screens, he insists that education happens not through direct instruction but “indirectly by means of the environment” where members of a community engage in meaningful tasks. This volume includes a critical Introduction by noted scholar Patricia H. Hinchey, Professor Emerita of Education at Penn State.

View more information about the newest edition of Democracy and Education.

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NEW Book: American Public Education and the Responsibility of its Citizens

Sarah Stitzlein’s new book, American Public Education and the Responsibility of its Citizens, argues that public schools are central to a flourishing democracy, where children learn how to solve problems together, build shared identities, and come to value justice and liberty. Taking up John Dewey’s legacy, Stitzlein’s book does several things,

  • Helps citizens understand recent changes in school practice and governance
  • Responds to citizens feeling disinterested in public institutions and helps them see not only that they should support them, but also how they can do so, including offering specific examples of people and communities that are already succeeding in this work
  • Offers a critical, but hopeful vision for how citizens can respond to problems in schools and how they can alleviate them
  • Focuses on hope and a vision of shared public work for the common good in the midst of a climate the emphasizes individualism and personal gain.

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John Dewey Lecturer, Dr. Scott Shapiro

Annual JDS Conference | April 13, 2018 | 4pm
Dr. Scott Shapiro, John Dewey Lecturer

First 75 attendees will receive a free copy of his book, The Internationalists. Scott J. Shapiro is the Charles F. Southmayd Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at Yale Law School, where he is the Director of the Center for Law and Philosophy. He is also the Visiting Quain Professor of Jurisprudence at University College, London. He is the author of Legality and editor of The Oxford Handbook of Jurisprudence and the Philosophy of Law.Facebooktwittermail

Join JDS today!

Along with your new membership, you will receive two classic books: John Dewey’s The Sources of a Science of Education and Dan Tanner’s book on the history of the John Dewey Society, Crusade for Democracy: Progressive Education at the Crossroads.  The Society thanks the Tanner Foundation for making this offer possible.

Visit the Membership page to join today!

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NEW Book: John Dewey, America’s Peace-Minded Educator

9780809335046In John Dewey, America’s Peace-Minded Educator, authors Charles F. Howlett and Audrey Cohan take a close look at John Dewey’s many undertakings on behalf of world peace. This volume covers Dewey’s support of, and subsequent disillusionment with, the First World War as well as his postwar involvement in trying to prevent another world war. Other topics include his interest in peace movements in education, his condemnation of American military intervention in Latin America and of armaments and munitions makers during the Great Depression, his defense of civil liberties during World War II, and his cautions at the start of the atomic age. The concluding epilogue discusses how Dewey fell out of favor with some academics and social critics in the 1950s and explores how Dewey’s ideas can still be useful to peace education today.

Exploring Dewey’s use of pragmatic philosophy to build a consensus for world peace, Howlett and Cohan illuminate a previously neglected aspect of his contributions to American political and social thought and remind us of the importance of creating a culture of peace through educational awareness.

For additional information: download book flier

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NEW Book: Home/Schooling: Creating Schools that Work for Kids, Parents and Teachers

Kyle Greenwalt’s new book, Home/Schooling: Creating Schools that Work for Kids, Parents and Teachers, examines how, during the nineteenth century, American social reformers took hold of an already existing institution—the school—and sought to make it compulsory. In the process, they supplanted parents and domestic life—the home—as the primary educational force for children.

In this book, Greenwalt argues that as education was taken out of the home, American classrooms were at the same time remade into a particular kind of home life—one based upon a sentimentalized maternity, where love can always triumph over the “public” and “masculine” forces of competition, merit, and hierarchy. In this model, a good teacher loves her students. She makes her classroom into a home. Like a good mother, she sacrifices for them, enduring long hours of isolation, low pay, and little public support or recognition. Students, in their turn, should love their teacher. To please her, they should learn the values that would sustain a more virtuous republic. Parenting, through all of this, was redefined as a private activity. Battle lines were drawn and the stakes were love, learning and control. Greenwalt argues that it doesn’t need to be this way. That it is time to rethink the ways in which parents and teachers interact with one another. That it is time to redefine “homeschooling” as something all families engage in and that all public schools should seek to support.

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NEW Book: Dads & Fathers: A Book on Dangerous Educators

dads_and_fathers_coverDan Tedenljung’s new book, “Dads & Fathers: A Book on Dangerous Educators“ is for parents, but a very dif‌ferent one.  It’s a book about something greater than you being fit to be a parent. It’s a book for anyone who wonders how the process of learning can be handled in a pragmatical way.

With the interest in the philosophy of pragmatism and a critique of the Western philosophy of knowledge, as well as in recent political philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, and philosophy of religion, a growing interest in knowledge development is now being directed back to the American philosopher who once influenced a whole world with his view of experience and education. John Dewey wrote hundreds of articles and many books on topics such as: democracy, education, ethics and philosophy. From John Dewey’s comprehensive text production, we have chosen what we consider is one of the best statements of experience and human development, namely the book entitled Experience & Education.

Tedenljung takes on John Dewey’s experimental method right from the beginning, from where it all starts, in the fostering of our own children. Let’s call our ambition a project of a parental attitude with global proportions. No matter what kind of educator people end up being: fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, grannies, teachers, scholars, managers or politicians; there is no better starting point than John Dewey’s transactional theory of learning if to understand how life unfold.

For more information: Dads & Fathers

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NEW Book: John Dewey and the Future of Community College Education

Cliff Harbour’s John Dewey and the Future of Community College Education, explains how faculty and staff at American community colleges can develop a new normative vision for their institution based on the work of John Dewey. More than other postsecondary institutions, community colleges are under increasing pressure to vocationalize their curricula and substantially increase graduation rates. Often the consequence of these “reforms” is to deny community college students the opportunity to learn from their experience and prepare for a full life in democratic communities. Harbour’s text provides concise parallel histories of the community college and John Dewey and shows how the philosopher is much more relevant to public two-year institutions than previously acknowledged.

For more information: John Dewey and the Future of Community College Education Facebooktwittermail

NEW Book: International Handbook of Progressive Education

The International Handbook of Progressive Education (New York: Peter Lang, 2015) has just been published. This handbook includes contributions from many John Dewey Society members.

The handbook is a large collection representing many historical periods and regions of the world. Chapters include, but are not limited to the Progressive Education period in the early 20th century US. The editors involved with the project hope that it will become an essential resource for anyone interested in progressive possibilities in education.

For more information: International Handbook of Progressive Education
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Join the New Forum with JDS

john-dewey-forumOn 9 August 2015, the JDS officially launched its forum as a medium to enhance communication with those interested in discussing the scholarship of John Dewey.

Those interested in joining the forum will first need to register and create a user account. The forum is located on the menu bar located on the homepage of the JDS.

Join the online forum by click here: http://www.johndeweysociety.org/forum/

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“A visit to Dewey’s grave site in Burlington, Vermont” by David Hansen

john-dewey-graveRecently, David Hansen, Director of the Program in Philosophy and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, had the opportunity to visit Dewey’s grave site located in Burlington, Vermont.

In regard to the visit, Professor Hansen noted:
The site is beautifully tucked into a corner of Allen Chapel on the campus of the University of Vermont, where Dewey received his undergraduate degree in 1879.  I found the occasion quite moving, and as Elaine and I stood for awhile in the quiet of birdsong and insects humming, I read to her a few of Dewey’s poems memorably collected by Jo Ann Boydston.

To see more photos kindly provided by Professor Hansen click here.

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In memory of Philip W. Jackson

Philip W. JacksonThe JDS would like to recognize the passing of Philip W. Jackson. Long time friend and leader of both the John Dewey Society and the American Educational Research Association, Philip Jackson, has passed away. Bringing inspiration to current JDS Board Member, Craig Cunningham, recalls, “His work inspired me when I was an undergraduate and has continued to inspire me. He had an impressive knack for finding the right problems to investigate. He invented his own ways of investigating them. A unique intellectual leader.”

Along with serving a term as the JDS President, Philip was also the Dewey Lecturer in 1999 (from which his book, John Dewey and the Philosopher’s Task was published), and along with his recently passed colleague, Herbert Kliebard, the 1999 recipient of the JDS Outstanding Career Achievement Award.

Please view a beautiful tribute to Philip, written by his student and current JDS Board Member, Craig Cunningham here: Tribute to Philip W. JacksonFacebooktwittermail

In memory of Herbert Kliebard

Photo of Herbert KliebardThe JDS would like to recognize the passing of curriculum historian and Dewey scholar, Herbert Kliebard.  Professor Herbert was a highly respected scholar, a Dewey expert, the 1999 JDS Outstanding Achievement Award recipient, and the 2005 Annual John Dewey Society Lecturer.  JDS President, Leonard Waks‘ noted that Herb “joined my dissertation committee fifty years ago, and was a steady, diligent and caring teacher and guide for me and his many other advisees.”

Please read the obituary here: http://www.cressfuneralservice.com/obituary/137830/Herbert-KliebardFacebooktwittermail

NEW Book: Dewey’s Earlier Logical Inquiry

The John Dewey Society is pleased to announce a new book by one of its members titled, Dewey’s Earlier Logical Inquiry. This book provides an analysis of Dewey’s pre-1916 work on logic and its relationship to his better-known work from 1938.

James Scott Johnston is a Jointly Appointed Associate Professor of Education and Philosophy at Memorial University in Canada and at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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NEW Book: Living As Learning

The John Dewey Society is pleased to announce a new book by its members titled, Living As Learning: John Dewey in the 21st Century.  The book features Dewey scholars Jim Garrison and Larry Hickman in dialogue with Daisaku Ikeda.

Living As Learning is a timely publication for educators looking to revive the creative, humanistic, and social dimensions of teaching and learning. The book is appropriate for any number of educational foundations courses of the sort.  The authors also explore many powerful resonances between American pragmatism and humanistic Buddhism.

For more information: Living As Learning

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Interview with Steven Fesmire, Author of the NEW Book, Dewey

steven-fesmireSteven Fesmire recently discussed his new book, Dewey with Routledge. In this interview, Fesmire discusses what first attracted him to Dewey, the writing style of his new book, new features included in the book, such as a “lost book” written by Dewey in the 1940s and only recently discovered, the relevance of Dewey today, and what Dewey might make of today’s American education system.

Read the full interview here: Exclusive Interview Steven Fesmire

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NEW Book: Dewey: Steven Fesmire

In this superb introduction, Dewey’s life and works are discussed and assessed before his key ideas across the major disciplines in philosophy; including metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, ethics, educational philosophy, social-political philosophy, and religious philosophy. This book is part of the The Routledge Philosophers series.

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