J. CURRICULUM STUDIES, 2000, VOL . 32, NO . 3, 453 ±466 ESSAY REVIEW T he resurgence of Dewey: are his educational ideas still relevant? KAT HY HYT T EN Describing his pedagogical beliefs over a century ago, John Dewey o€ers a powerful statement about the critical role of education in society. He writes (Dewey 1975: 94) that `the community’s duty to education . . . is its paramount moral duty . . . through education society can formulate its own purposes, can organize its own means and resources, and thus shape itself with de®niteness and economy in the direction in which it wishes to move’. Dewey grants education a central role in constructing and shaping society. T his is an important and profound idea, yet one that has rarely been at the forefront of educational thinking. In the rhetoric that surrounds educational reform, we hear much talk of increasingly rigorous academic standards, more sophisticated and frequent assessments, and heightened security and discipline. While surely these are important, like so many school reform e€orts, we approach them in fragmented and piecemeal ways. T hey remain disconnected from a larger vision of education’s social and moral purpose and, hence, our e€orts in these areas are often shallow. Dewey’s approach to education o€ers us something di€erent. Out of his rich collection of writings emerges a comprehensive, thoughtful, and coherent philosophy of education ; one that attends fundamentally to `why’ questions (e.g. Why set up schools, curricula, and classrooms in T he books reviewed here are Harriet K. Cu€aro, Experimenting with the W orld: John Dewey and Early Childhood Education (New York: T eachers College Press, 1994) , 144 pp. , $32.00 (hbk) , ISBN 0-8077-3372-5, $16.95 (pbk) , ISBN 0-8077-3371-7 ; Stephen M. Fishman and Lucille P. McCarthy, John Dewey and the Challenge of Classroom Practice (New York: T eachers College Press, 1998) , 260 pp. , $46.00 (hbk) , ISBN 0-8077-3727-5, $20.95 (pbk), ISBN 0-8077-3726 -7; and Laurel N. T anner, Dewey’s L aboratory S chool: L essons for T oday (New York: T eachers College Press, 1997) , 216 pp. , $46.00 (hbk), ISBN 0-8077-3619-8, $21.95 (pbk), ISBN 0-8077-3618-X. Kathy Hytten is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Administration and Higher Education at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Carbondale, IL 62901-4606 , USA. Her research interests are in philosophy of education, pragmatism, critical pedagogy, and cultural studies. She has published papers recently in Educational S tudies, Educational Foundation s and Philosophica l S tudies in Education. Journa l of Curriculum S tudies ISSN 0022±0272 print/ISSN 1366±5839 online # 2000 T aylor & Francis Ltd http://www.tandf .co.uk/journals 454 K. HYTTEN certain ways? Why emphasize particular ideas and knowledges? Why use some teaching strategies and not others?). Despite the fact that Dewey wrote the bulk of his work in the ®rst half of this century, his educational ideas remain timely, relevant, and largely untested in US schools. As we continually seek ways to revitalize and reform the education we provide for children, Dewey remains an invaluable resource. It is dicult to assess the overall impact Dewey has had on US education. Most US teachers have some passing familiarity with his ideas, yet attention to Dewey in teacher education seems less and less common. He is frequently hailed as the father of progressive education and lauded by those who favour more student involvement and hands-on learning. At the same time, he is also often targeted by US conservatives for supposedly watering down academic rigor in schools and for encouraging relativism. Addressing the overall impact of Dewey’s ideas, Noddings (1995: 24) argues that we have no good way to assess how much his thoughts have ever in¯uenced practice. At di€erent times he has been `revered, castigated, admired, and ridiculed’. T here are several reasons for this mixed reaction to Dewey and his ideas. Foremost, he wrote extensively and widely. His collected works span 37 volumes. In such a large corpus of writing, without careful and broad reading, it is easy to misunderstand Dewey ; taking statements and claims out of context and, thereby, altering his meanings and intentions. T he density of so many of his writings is equally challenging. Commenting on the struggles of reading and understanding Dewey, Westbrook (1991: xiii) asserts that `knowing a lot about what his beliefs were is a dicult task, for precision and clarity often escaped him’. Fishman and McCarthy (1998: 6) concur, adding that `Dewey presents his educational philosophy in such vague terms that it takes considerable e€ort to feel that one has captured the spirit of his work’. Despite these diculties, the renaissance in interest in his work in the past decade suggests that rethinking Dewey’s ideas at the present time is, nonetheless, a worthwhile and fruitful task. In the past decade, a `new scholarship’ on Dewey has emerged among academic philosophers (Garrison 1995). Concurrently, scholars in a wide variety of academic disciplines, from history to sociology, literary criticism to feminist theory, have also been drawing from , and building upon, Dewey’s pragmatist thought (e.g. Gunn 1992, Joas 1993, Diggins 1994, Seigfried 1996). L argely, this new scholarship has focused on his philosophical and theoretical writings, with less attention speci®cally to his educational work (though this distinction is certainly a tenuous one). T hree overlapping themes help to characterize contemporary Dewey scholarship. First, several rich historical accounts of Dewey’s life and his work have recently been published, including Westbrook’s (1991) intellectual biography, John D ewey and A merican D emocracy and Boisvert’s (1997) John D ewey: Rethinking Our T ime. Secondly, there is renewed attention to his social and political thought, and its relevance to contemporary democracy. Arguably, West’s (1989) work has been the most in¯uential in revitalizing this strand of Dewey’s ideas, suggesting that his call for intellectuals to be actively engaged in the a€ airs of the world and in the construction of a critical democracy is still crucial. Ryan’s (1995) John THE RESURGENCE OF DEWEY 455 D ewey and the High T ide of A merican L iberalism and Campbell’s (1995) Understanding John D ewey also focus heavily on Dewey’s political and social vision. T hirdly, Dewey’s aesthetics have been emphasized by a number of scholars, in such works as Cherryholmes’ (1999) Reading Pragmatism, Jackson’s (1998) John D ewey and the L essons of A rt, and Garrison’s (1997) D ewey and Eros: W isdom and Desire in the A rt of T eaching. Perhaps inspired by this interdisciplinary scholarly attention to Dewey’s ideas, there has also been a renewed, and seemingly still growing, interest in Dewey’s educational thought. For those of us in education, this is a fortuitous occurrence, especially as it is critical to ensuring that the new scholarship on Dewey gains practical relevance. T he idea that philosophy should make a di€erence in how we live our daily lives is fundamental in Dewey’s thought. He argues that it should help men and women deal with the problems of their day and create a more harmonious and ful®lling future. For him, education provides the arena in which to test out the value of philosophical ideas. He writes (1985: 338, 341) that `education o€ers a vantage ground from which to penetrate to the human . . . signi®cance of philosophical discussions’ , adding that `the reconstruction of philosophy, education, and of social ideals and methods thus go hand in hand’. T oo often, in works about Dewey, the central role of education in his thought is underexplored. Several new books on Dewey help to alter this trend. In arguing for the importance of their recent book on Dewey’s educational practice, Fishman and McCarthy (1998: 2±3) suggest that, in spite of the `current revival of Dewey scholarship’ , few practical studies of Deweyan theory in actual classrooms have appeared since the 1930s. T hey o€er their book, John D ewey and the Challenge of Classroom Practice (1998) , in response. T he goals of two other new volumes on Dewey seem similar: Cu€aro’s (1995) Experimenting W ith T he W orld: John D ewey and the Early Childhood Classroom, and T anner’s (1997) D ewey’s L aboratory S chool: L essons for T oday. T aken together, these three books o€er a powerful vision of how Dewey’s ideas can help us to rethink our educational reform e€orts so as to bring about enriched educational experiences for children, as well as a more democratic social order. T he purpose of this essay is to explore the current value of Dewey’s thinking in educational reform e€orts at the close of the 20 th century. I do this through an examination of the overriding themes that link the current educational works on Dewey, drawing speci®cally from Cu€aro, T anner, and Fishman and McCarthy’s new texts. First, I brie¯y describe each of these books and characterize their areas of focus. Secondly, I develop four themes in Dewey’s thought, implicitly and explicitly detailed in these texts, that have preeminent importance to contemporary educational reform. T hese are the need for a clear philosophy of education and schooling as a guide for practice, an experimental and experiential approach to education, curriculum continuity, and a democratic social and moral vision for schools. T hirdly, I close with a summative assessment of these three new texts and a brief concluding discussion of the current value of Dewey’s insights. 456 K. HYTTEN Con te m p orary De w e y sc h olarsh ip Each of the three texts discussed in this essay review deal speci®cally with Dewey’s relevance to contemporary educational practice. T hey touch on all academic levels, from the early childhood classroom to the university setting. T heir shared agenda is to show how `Deweyan theory can be fruitfully applied in ordinary school situations’ (Fishman and McCarthy 1998: 5). In working toward this goal, T anner takes a historical approach. She not only describes Dewey’s educational ideas, but shows how he translated them into practice. In her preface, she comments on the rediscovery of Dewey, lamenting that `many of us already knew about Dewey and rediscovery was not necessary. What we do need, particularly if we are teachers or teacher educators, is to know more about the workings of his experimental school (1896 ±1904)’ (T anner 1997: xi). T anner’s logic is that, through studying what Dewey did in his own school, we can see how he bridged theory and practice, and thereby uncover valuable lessons for today. Her strategy is to explore the daily operations of the school, to look at its organizational and administrative structure, to analyse the curriculum , and to listen to the voices of the teachers in tracing `what we can learn from Dewey and his sta€ as we wrestle with the same problems that they worked out’ (T anner 1997: xiii). In each of the chapters she o€ers `lessons unlearned’ from Dewey’s school: the need to examine deeply educational innovations in controlled settings, the importance of beginning education with activities familiar to children, the need to recognize children as individuals, and the necessity of common planning time and shared decision making among teachers. T he culmination of the book is a list of 25 elements that would be found in a school implementing Dewey’s vision. Cu€aro and Fishman and McCarthy take a di€erent approach to Dewey, that is, they elucidate how they have individually struggled with, made sense of , and put Dewey’s ideas into their own practice. In some ways, they appear to build from the type of lessons that T anner articulates as they detail their own teaching. Cu€aro’s focus is the early childhood classroom. In her text, she alternates between theoretical chapters explicating important concepts from Dewey, particularly his notions of experience and the social individual, and practice-oriented chapters centring on anecdotes from actual classrooms that involve children’s activities with blocks. She opens by discussing how she came to Dewey after leaving the classroom and how he helped her to make sense of her own educational approach: `what I found in this ®rst reading of Dewey was not answers but a way of thinking about teaching that enlarged purpose’ (Cu€aro 1994: 7). Her book builds toward the conclusion that Dewey remains a powerful guide for current practice, o€ering `principles, guidance, a view of human nature, of learning and growth, and a broad vision of a democratic society that connected with my preferred possibilities’ (Cu€aro 1994: 101). Fishman and McCarthy’s text also deals with using Dewey in practice, yet is further unique in that it involves a collaborative, Deweyan approach to research. Fishman is a professor of philosophy who enlists the help of McCarthy, a qualitative researcher and composition teacher, in order to study his own e€orts at incorporating a Deweyan approach to teaching in THE RESURGENCE OF DEWEY 457 his `Introduction to Philosophy’ course. T he ®rst half of the book is devoted to an exploration of key themes from Dewey’s educational writings, most notably what Fishman calls `nested dualisms’: individual and group, continuity and interaction, construction and criticism, and interest and e€ort (Fishman and McCarthy 1998: 16). After working out how he perceives Dewey reconciling these dualisms, Part two of the book is a qualitative study of a semester in Fishman’s teaching. With McCarthy’s help, they interview students, tape and transcribe class sessions, examine students’ work, and elicit student feedback on classroom activities and exercises. T hroughout the portrait of Fishman’s practice, we see him labouring to connect students’ lives and experiences meaningfully to the curriculum, to de®ne their own goals for understanding the classroom material, and to develop habits and dispositions towards future learning. T heir project is truly a collaborative e€ort, as they co-write all of the chapters in Part two and display in their partnership `the very sort of cooperative, intelligent inquiry which Dewey urges us to teach to our students’ (Fishman and McCarthy 1998: 222). Underlying their e€orts is a belief that our educational practice should be guided by a philosophical vision that helps us to make sense of what we do in the classroom and why. T his theme of the need for a philosophy of education is, perhaps, the strongest link that connects the three books under review. Ph ilo so ph y of e d u c ation It is not common that teachers are asked to articulate their philosophy of education, or even to have one. US teacher education programmes tend to eschew deep questions about the purposes of education in a democratic society and about why we do what we do in schools. Instead, they seem to focus `on a how-to mentality, the acquisition of techniques, and the meeting of certi®cation requirements’ (Cu€aro 1994: 9). T he need to ground our practices in a well-conceived philosophy of education is a central theme in Dewey’s educational thought. He (Dewey 1985: 338 ±339) criticizes educators for somewhat blindly following tradition, suggesting that `the business of schooling tends to become a routine empirical a€ air unless its aims and methods are animated by such a broad and sympathetic survey of its place in contemporary life as it is the business of philosophy to provide’. T his need to more ®rmly ground education in a coherent, articulate, and comprehensive philosophy of education is echoed by contemporary educational critics. For example, Postman (1995) usefully distinguishes between two types of problems educators need to solve: engineering ones and metaphysical ones. Engineering questions centre on how to best do something while metaphysical ones are ultimately more concerned with why questions. He bemoans the fact that the US seems to be a nation obsessed with engineering questions (e.g. how to construct the best tests, lesson plans, organizational schemes) , to the near exclusion of considering metaphysical ones. Knowing how to do something pro®ciently is not the same as knowing why to do it in the ®rst place. Without a clear sense purpose, a philosophy of education, or what Postman (1995: 7) calls a 458 K. HYTTEN `narrative, life has no meaning. Without meaning, learning has no purpose. Without a purpose, schools are houses of detention, not attention’. Both Cu€aro and Fishman recognize the need for a philosophy which can help them to make sense of , and at the same time continually improve, their teaching practice. Signi®cantly, both came to this realization after they were already seasoned teachers. In fact, Cu€aro opens her book highlighting this idea: A basic assumption of this book is my belief that it is essential in teaching that practice be grounded in a consciously held, critically examined philosophical framework created by the teacher. A philosophy of education represents the choices, values, knowledge, and beliefs of teachers as well as their aspirations , intentions and aims. It serves to guide and inspire and contributes to determining the detail of the everyday life in the classroom (Cu€aro 1994: 1). She goes on to discuss her own teaching experience ; struggling to ®nd her way in a public school system where `there was not an articulated philosophy with which to contend, but regulations, rules that were seldom open to discussion’ (Cu€aro 1994: 4). It was only after she left teaching for an academic position that she could see Dewey’s ideas bringing meaning to her e€orts in the classroom , helping her to connect `the what of curriculum with the what for of curriculum’ (Cu€aro 1994: 6). Fishman’s experience was similar. After several decades of university teaching, Fishman altered his teaching approach to be more in line with Dewey’s ideas, despite the fact that he had been compelled by them for a long time. He aimed, in particular, to better integrate students’ experiences and the curriculum through more indirect pedagogical activities. What he found in Dewey work is `a set of lenses through which to view our classes’ (Fishman and McCarthy 1998: 2) , as well as `a large canvas of educational guidelines rather than a hardened tablet of teaching techniques and rules’ (Fishman and McCarthy 1998: 67). T aken together, these guidelines amount to a philosophy of education and a vision of the reasons for using some strategies and activities and not others. T he need for a philosophy of education comes out equally in T anner’s exploration of Dewey’s L aboratory School. In fact, her book provides a clear vision of Dewey’s philosophy in practice and the lesson that extracts from his ideas is that teachers must have a clear sense of purpose to guide their pedagogy. She writes from experience that `teachers are often expected to master the instructional approaches without any understanding of the reasons behind them. T his is certain death for school reform’ (T anner 1997: 168). Without an overriding purpose in which to contextualize the curriculum, we are likely to jump from one innovation or fad to another, typically abandoning them in favour of traditionÐwhich is usually perceived as good enough. T he primary lesson that Dewey teaches us, and this lesson is infused throughout these texts, is that teachers and teacher educators need to pay much more attention to the importance of philosophical purposes. Educators need a deep sense of why before we ask them to master particular methods or techniques. So, what is Dewey’s philosophy of education? While clearly there is not the space to outline it in detail here, THE RESURGENCE OF DEWEY 459 the texts emphasize three key, emblematic features: the need for an experimental and experiential approach to education ; the importance of curriculum continuity ; and the necessity of a social and moral vision for schools. In explicating these elements of Dewey’s philosophy, his contemporary relevance will hopefully be obvious. Expe rim e n talism an d e xpe rie n c e Dewey’s attitude toward education, and toward philosophy in general, is an experimental one. As a pragmatist, he wants us to test out our ideas in practice, so that we can see their consequences in action and modify them in order to bring about better results. He created the Laboratory School as an experimental ground to try out his pedagogical ideas. In this setting, the teachers could make new discoveries, discard practices that were ine€ective, and further enhance ideas that worked. When talking about his school, T anner claims `it had but one purpose: to make discoveries about the education of the child by putting theory into practice in an experimental setting and modifying theory by what was learned’ (T anner 1997: 19). She adds that this experimental approach to education is a lesson not learned in today’s schools, which are often `shackled by tradition’ and unwilling to seriously attempt innovations in controlled settings (T anner 1997: 21). An experimental attitude permeates Cu€aro and Fishman and McCarthy’s relationships with Dewey’s ideas as well. In her work with early childhood students, Cu€aro stresses the educational value of play in encouraging activity, imagination, creativity, and experimentation. She argues for providing students with enough uninterrupted time to develop in-depth involvement with their activities and creations. She describes, for example, a variety of lessons learned from an experience in which children constructed a village with blocks and then had to negotiate how to respond to their classmates racing cars around and through the buildings. Fishman and McCarthy’s partnership in studying Fishman’s class is itself a paradigmatic example of an experimental approach. Fishman wanted to better reach and educate his students, so he developed a series of new pedagogical activities and studied how they worked over the course of a semester. Relating the method he and McCarthy use in the book to Dewey’s ideas, they assert `our study implements his notion that school reform rests upon practitioners capable of experimentation and change’ (Fishman and McCarthy 1998: 5). For Fishman, this meant moving away from a direct, lecture-style pedagogy to using more group work, co-operative activities, discussion, and a variety of writing assignments connected to students’ backgrounds and needs. Ultimately, his exploration meant attending to, and building upon, students’ experiences. T he cornerstone of Dewey’s philosophy of education is the importance of experience. T hus, he (Dewey 1991: 61) writes `that education, in order to accomplish its ends for both the individual learner and for society, must be based upon experience’ and, moreover, that he is `con®dent of the potentialities of education when it is treated as an intelligently directed development of possibilities inherent in ordinary experience’. All three of these 460 K. HYTTEN books attend to the centrality of experience in Dewey’s thought. T hey build upon his idea that learning is a natural phenomenon that proceeds from an individual’s engagements with the world. We learn from doing, interacting, and experimenting with ideas, not from passive reception of them. Fishman captures this idea concisely, drawing upon Dewey’s statement that `we cannot hand ideas to students as if they were bricks’ (Fishman and McCarthy 1998: 20). What Dewey meant by experience as the anchor for education is perhaps best seen in his own model school. T he curriculum in his school was developed around activities with which students had experience, and moulded into subjects related to real life. He chose a `civilisational theme’ for his school, intending students to study and engage in the fundamental activities that comprise a civilisationÐ gathering resources, cooking, making shelter and clothes, developing industry, etc. T his curriculum theme emerged from watching children and, as T anner (1997: 58) suggests, `noting that much of children’s play is haphazard e€orts in miniature to reproduce social occupations’. Dewey believed that children’s impulses and experiences are tremendously valuable resources for education. Our role as teachers is to build upon these experiences and to create an environment where students can make connections to other experiences, construct personal meaning out of what they are learning, and become open to new possibilities for growth. Describing the essential importance of experience, Cu€aro (1994: 56) o€ers that `meaning is not out there, ®xed, outside of self , waiting to be discovered or delivered. Like mind and self it is achieved, attained, through action and within a context’. If we understand the importance of experience correctly, we see that it implies that we have to know our students well and be open to experimenting with assignments and activities. Cu€aro (1994: 43) writes that `we cannot depend on stock responses ; we cannot function with standardized expectations. We cannot plan exactly how something will turn out’. For education to be meaningful to students, their experiences need to be taken seriously, and woven integrally into the curriculum. Dewey argued emphatically that there must exist a continuity between the child and the curriculum in order for learning and growth to occur. T hey must feel vested in their learning and seek knowledge that matters to them. T his means, as Fishman puts it, that `teachers must encourage students to ®nd genuine problems which excite their interest, problems which can be explored and ameliorated by engagements with the curriculum’ (Fishman and McCarthy 1998: 19). T his theme of curriculum continuity is critical in Dewey’s thought. Cu rric u lu m c on tin u ity A common goal in Dewey’s philosophical approach is to reconcile dualisms, that is, to expose the intrinsic connections between things that at ®rst glance seem separate and distinct. He writes extensively about one such dualism in education, that between the child and the curriculum. On the one hand there is an immature, narrowly experienced child and, on the other, are established bodies of knowledge, grouped into academic subjects. THE RESURGENCE OF DEWEY 461 It is not uncommon for teachers to see their role as `giving’ this knowledge to students, often in the form of lectures or textbook-activities. T he students’ role is then to receive this knowledge, and to display it on demand, for example, when tested. T he older children get, the more commonly this banking method of education (Freire 1994) is practised. Yet, Dewey argues that we must see the student and the curriculum as integrated for any e€ective learning to occur. L earning, for him, can never be a passive a€ air. It must involve activity and interaction, and allow for students to make connections between the classroom and the real world. He (Dewey 1976: 278) writes that curriculum must involve `continuous reconstruction, moving from the child’s present experience out into that represented by the organized bodies of truth that we call studies’. T he relationship between students and the curriculum must be ¯uid, dynamic, and continuous. Fishman argues that `as Dewey sees it, educational theorists have neglected the co-dependence of students and curriculum in their desire to stress either one or the other. It is the educational dualism which Dewey works hardest to overcome’ (Fishman and McCarthy 1998: 20) . T he strong emphasis which Dewey places on curriculum continuity is manifest in the operations of his Laboratory School. As suggested earlier, he based the school’s curriculum design on activities with which students were familiar, such as occupations and domestic a€ airs, and built connections from these to established knowledge bases. According to T anner (1997: 39) , `what Dewey was saying was that if subjects are related to real lifeÐwhich is their origin and purpose to begin withÐcurriculum correlation unavoidably results’. Both Cu€aro and Fishman aim at exactly this type of curricular continuity in their practice. In fact, one of the most valuable aspects of their books is their detailed descriptions of how they experimented in their own classrooms with establishing clear connections between students’ lives and interests and curriculum material. In Cu€aro’s early childhood classroom, she continually tried to push children to deeper insights and connections in their play, and to identify both real problems and viable solutions. In one extended anecdote, she describes a variety of social studies learning rooted in a children’s drama around islands. On their own initiative, the children in the class created imaginary islands on the classroom ¯oor, on which they constructed schools, hospitals, and businesses. With Cu€aro’s questioning, genuine interest, and subtle in¯uence on their play, they learned, among other things, about geography, travel, economics, and community-building. T eachers of older children and adults are able to draw more speci®c ideas from Fishman and McCarthy’s e€orts at achieving Dewey-like curriculum continuity in his college-level Introduction to Philosophy course. Fishman writes in detail of his e€orts at integrating students and curriculum , ®rst failing to involve students’ interests and experiences in the curriculum, and then tilting the scales too far in the other direction to the point where students seemed to perceive the sharing of personal, narrative accounts of their experiences as an end in itself , disconnected from engagement with course material. He ®nally settled on a pedagogical strategy more closely aligned with Dewey’s philosophy, what he terms 462 K. HYTTEN `indirect teaching’. Among the activities he has students engage in are class-re¯ection logs (where he asks students to respond to class discussions and activities, and to relate the materials to their lives) , letter-writing assignments (where students write and respond to letters written by their classmates about individual struggles they are having with, and/or questions they have about, the readings) , and a ®nal project asking them to write a philosophical essay about a real personal dilemma they faced. While they were introduced to a range of traditional and contemporary philosophical writings throughout the course, learning that material was never simply for mastery of others ideas. Rather, Fishman wanted them to `employ the curriculum for their own purposes’ (Fishman and McCarthy 1998: 167). In so doing, they were able to use classroom material to make sense of , and thus better deal with, issues in their lives. Dewey would see this as a natural outcome of curriculum continuity. Moreover, Fishman’s strategy allowed students to develop important habits and dispositions for future learning, for example, openness to new ideas, co-operation with peers, and wholehearted re¯ective thinking. T hese types of dispositions are the ones that Dewey thinks schools should be aiming to develop, particularly as part of a larger social and moral vision for education. Ultimately, Dewey felt `the formation of enduring attitudes, which he termed ``collateral learnings’’ is often the more important learning gained in schools rather than the speci®c lessons of subject matter’ (Cu€aro 1994: 40). Soc ial an d m oral v ision In Dewey’s thinking, the actual material that students were learning was not generally as important as the process they were engaged in while learning. He feels that perhaps the most important thing that schooling can do for children is to help them to develop the habits of heart and mind essential for democratic citizenship. T hese include a willingness to cooperate, to engage new ideas, to think deeply and re¯ectively, to share decision-making, to work perseveringly, and to serve the community. In How W e T hink (Dewey 1989: 134 ±139) he talks about the importance of cultivating the attitudes of open-mindedness, whole-heartedness, and responsibility in students, for these dispositions allow them to consider content material, and the world around them, in thoughtful ways. For Dewey, these are not simply the habits or attitudes of re¯ective thinkers but also of democratic citizens. He refused to separate what occurs in the classroom with a larger social and moral vision for schools, arguing that it is through education that we can reform and recreate society. T he importance of developing the habits and dispositions necessary to participate in school and society is a theme that comes up in all three of the works under review. For example, T anner describes the Laboratory School as an embryonic community, imbued with a spirit of service, consistent with his belief that `working together in close association with others on an activity meant that one’s own work contributed to a common purpose and could build lifelong habits’ (T anner 1997: 4). McCarthy ®nds Fishman most successful in helping students develop dispositions towards future THE RESURGENCE OF DEWEY 463 learning: the ability to work fruitfully with their peers, to tolerate ambiguity and di€erence, and to work with integrity and self-discipline. Cu€aro models the development of democratic community in her classroom, creating an atmosphere that is conducive to communication, the sharing of ideas, and the welcoming of diversity. T he importance Dewey places on the development of habits underscores a more fundamental belief , that is that education is a social and moral undertaking. He maintains that a moral vision and perspective should not be in `addition to the existing curriculum but intrinsic to, and growing out of , classroom life’ (Cu€aro 1994: 53). Such a vision should guide our choice of curriculum material, pedagogical activities, and organizational strategies. In his own school, students were given ample opportunity to work on projects that were of interest to them , and `to think critically and act on their judgements’ (T anner 1997: 34). A number of features of Dewey’s school re¯ect his social and moral vision for education: a community setting, small classes where students are well known, consistent attention to the social signi®cance of subjects, hands-on activity, genuine problem-solving, shared decision-making, collaborative activity, and connections to the community outside of the school (T anner 1997: 177 ±178). It is these features of Dewey’s approach that Cu€aro and Fishman model in their pedagogy. What Cu€aro established in her classroom was a miniature democratic society, `built on communication, participation, and association’ , welcoming of plurality and diversity, and rejecting of `barriers that divide and exclude’ (Cu€aro 1994: 103). T his type of democratic atmosphere permeated Fishman’s classroom as well, where students learned to depend on each other, to take responsibility for helping their classmates to learn, and to integrate the curriculum and their lives. One of the things that these books implementing Dewey’s ideas do well is to give examples of Dewey’s moral vision translated into practice in particular situations. T hey do not provide blueprints for school reform , nor a step-by-step approach to integrating Dewey’s ideas into schools. T his would be inconsistent with his belief that local context matters, and that there is not one right or best way to do things in schools. What Dewey o€ers us instead are broad guidelines and principles, coupled with a clear sense of educational purpose, not a recipe for success or change. Even his own Laboratory School was positioned simply as a model or example, not as the model that should be followed by all schools. Yet, there are shared features of the educational portraits o€ered in all three books that bear the imprint of Dewey’s signature, features which speak to the moral work of schools. T anner summarizes these well, suggesting that his school was based on the following overriding ideas: (1) the school as a social community, which by its nature provides experience in community life; (2) formation of positive habits of perseverance , precision, co-operation, and service to the community (instead of emphasis on wrongdoing) ; and (3) teaching each and every subject in a way that brings out and makes central how people are a€ ected by it. T here is emotion involved here as well as intellect (T anner 1997: 169). 464 K. HYTTEN T here are lessons to be learned here by all educators who want to reach their students better, to engage them in meaningful activities, and to ensure that learning leads to growth beyond the classroom walls. In this respect, the three books point us in the direction of possibilities, providing a rich source of ideas for improving educational practice. T hey also display the ongoing relevance and merit of Dewey’s ideas. De w e y an d c on te m porary e d u c ation al re form T aken together, T anner, Cu€aro, and Fishman and McCarthy provide us with valuable portraits of teachers experimenting with Dewey’s ideas. In this goal, they are successful. In each, the reader can walk away with images of Deweyan pedagogy, as well as some accessible summaries of several of his relevant philosophical ideas. T he strengths of each are foremost in the rich descriptions of educational practices provided. T aken individually, however, their audiences and appeal are more limited. T anner’s depiction of Dewey’s Laboratory School, interwoven with lessons for today, speaks largely to elementary school practitioners. While her descriptions of the curricular continuity Dewey enacted are illustrative, we cannot underestimate the tremendous undertaking it would be to attempt to overhaul elementary curriculum to establish the kind of continuity and coherence Dewey imagined. T hough perhaps worthwhile, Dewey’s civilizational unifying theme would be dicult to translate in a fragmented and postindustrial society. Abating competition, individualism, and the division of children into grades and classes, all aspects of the L aboratory School, would be equally dicult. T anner alludes to these diculties when she suggests that curriculum reconstruction at an existing school is certainly harder than starting from square one and developing a curriculum that is developmental and uni®ed at a new school (T anner 1997: 70). T he list of elements in a Dewey-inspired school that T anner concludes with is a good summary of key aspects of his educational vision, though readers are likely to be left wondering how we get from where we are at now to that vision. T anner does not provide us with answers, only reasons why we should undertake the challenge of reform, and a vision of what could be. In her book, Cu€aro spends a fair amount of time translating complex ideas from Dewey’s writings into two important guiding themes: the social individual and the importance of experience. She explains these well. Her classroom anecdotes are of very young children typically engaged in spontaneous play. T eachers of this age-group will ®nd much value in her discussion of how she culled wide-ranging lessons out of her students’ activities. It is important to note that this takes a very special type of teacher, one who is experienced and possessing of `sucient knowledge in a variety of areas so that one may successfully ask the questions that push children to probe further and deeper’ (Cu€aro 1994: 83). Yet, like T anner, she does not tell us how to cultivate this ability, or speci®cally how to move early childhood classrooms in this direction. Moreover, teachers of older children and adults may ®nd it dicult to relate to the early childhood THE RESURGENCE OF DEWEY 465 classroom , where so much more freedom and experimentation seem permissible, as there are fewer curriculum guidelines and expectations. Fishman and McCarthy o€er, perhaps, the most speci®c pedagogical strategies that teachers at almost any level can borrow. T he speci®c assignments, as well as students’ engagements with them , are characterized in useful detail. Yet, despite the huge amount of e€ort Fishman put into his class, one ends the book somewhat disappointed in that, by his own admission, he wasn’t highly successful at getting students to link philosophy to their personal lives. Only a few of the students had outcomes he and McCarthy had hoped for, which may make Dewey’s ideas less persuasive to readers. With all the data they gathered, they only focus on a few students ; one is left wondering if these student experiences are representative, and if so, what they might have done di€erently to better engage student learning. On the other hand, what their book does allude to is the importance of teaching students the habits of critical and re¯ective thinking early in their academic careers, since it may be hard to break established patterns of intellectual passivity and complacency. On the whole, these three books argue persuasively for Dewey’s contemporary educational relevanceÐand, thus, are useful resources. T hey treat his ideas fairly, and invite readers to explore Dewey further. In this sense, they would perhaps most fruitfully be read in conjunction with reading Dewey himself. What they do best is to show that Dewey’s works still have a lot to o€er us today. What we can most draw from him is the importance of having a clear philosophy and vision that guides our e€orts in schools, a willingness to experiment and to discontinue pedagogical practices which leave students passive and unresponsive, and a sense of the necessary relationship between classroom learning, children’s lives, and the construction of a better future. Dewey wants us to spend much more time than we currently do in helping our students to become interested, con®dent, and engaged in their own learning. T his is something Americans tend to lose sight of in the call for increased standardization and national goal-setting. If we can learn anything from Dewey that speaks to our moment, it is the importance of cultivating the habits and dispositions for life-long learning and of making classrooms places where children don’t just have to go, but they want to. Re fe re n c e s BOISVERT, R. (1997) John Dewey: Rethinking Our T ime (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press). CAMPBELL, J. (1995) Understanding John Dewey: Nature and Cooperative Intelligence (Chicago: Open Court Press). CHERRYHOLMES, C. (1999) Reading Pragmatism (New York: T eachers College Press). DEWEY, J. (1975) T he Early W orks, 1882 ±1889: V ol. 5: 1895±1898 , ed. J. A. Boydston (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press). DEWEY, J. (1976) T he Middle W orks, 1899±1924: V ol. 2: 1902 ±1903, ed. J. A. Boydston (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press). DEWEY, J. (1985) T he Middle W orks, 1899 ±1924: V ol. 9: 1916, ed. J. A. Boydston (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press). 466 K. HYTTEN DEWEY, J. (1989) T he L ater W orks, 1925 ±1953: V ol. 8: 1933, ed. J. A. Boydston (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press). DEWEY, J. (1991) , T he L ater W orks, 1925 ±1953: V ol. 13, ed. J. A. Boydston (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press). DIGGINS, J. (1994) T he Promise of Pragmatism: Modernism and the Crisis of Knowledge and Authority (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). FREIRE, P. (1994) Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Continuum). GARRISON, J. (ed.) (1995) T he New S cholarship on Dewey (Dordrecht, T he Netherlands: Kluwer). GARRISON, J. W. (1997) Dewey and Eros: W isdom and Desire in the Art of T eaching (New York: T eachers College Press). GUNN, G. (1992) T hinking Across the American Grain: Ideology, Intellect, and the New Pragmatism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). JACKSON, P. W. (1998) John Dewey and the L essons of Art (New Haven, CT : Yale University Press). JOAS, H. (1993) Pragmatism and S ocial T heory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). NODDINGS, N. (1995) Philosophy of Education (Boulder, CO: Westview Press). POSTMAN, N. (1995) T he End of Education: Rede®ning the V alue of S chool (New York: Alfred E. Knopf). RYAN, A. (1995) John Dewey and the High T ide of American L iberalism (New York: W. W. Norton). SEIGFRIED, C. (1996) Reweaving the S ocial Fabric: Pragmatism and Feminism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). WEST, C. (1989) T he American Evasion of Philosophy : A Genealogy of Pragmatism (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press). WESTBROOK, R. B. (1991) John Dewey and American Democracy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).