A Quote by John Dewey

” If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow. ” – John Dewey

John Dewey was a very influential individual during the beginnings of progressive education. His basis in experiential learning made the educational experience the most important thing within the curriculum. Each student learned the best from experiencing learning in their own way. Students also needed to have their own sense of direction while learning and got to learn things they wanted to learn as well as many of the concepts he deemed important, such as problem solving capacity, critical thinking and recognition of failure as part of process of learning.

This quote tells me that John Dewey cared about the experiences that his students had in and out of the classroom. He wanted his students to be curious about the world around them and be willing to engage with the unknown to better their understanding. This progressive model towards education aligns very much with myself because this is how I learned best growing up. I always struggled with math and sciences, things like the Pythagorean theorem, angles, charts and such were difficult for me to get a grasp on. However, one day I was given the option to sign up for a carpentry class and this changed everything. We were using many of the same concepts learning in class material and applying it to a real world situation. Having all the pieces of wood there and calculating the angles needed for each cut, drawing drafts of plans up to make sure that all the pieces would fit together beforehand helped me internalize the same learnings I struggled with for years. This quote shows me that John really thought about different capabilities of learners and recognized that students needed to be presented educational materials in a variety of ways to really internalize the subject.

In terms of curriculum this quote is again very progressive in my opinion because it makes takes into account the fact that there is a process in education. Failure can be just as important as success in learning, because our successes depend on our willingness to fail. For example, think of all the things we wouldn’t have today if their original inventors had given up when they first failed. Let’s take the Wright brothers for example, it took them several years of developing different prototypes of planes, as well as researching the failures of aviators before them. When they finally succeeded in getting a plane into the air to about 10 feet off the ground, which in today’s standards is nothing but it was none the less an important stepping stone. Which brings me back to Dewey’s quote if we stick to the way our predecessors learned than there isn’t much space for improvement. If we want our students to experience and learn in a positive manner, I feel curriculum needs to reflect the same. Just like how students can learn through process, curriculum should be under constant monitoring and should be routinely improved upon so that teachers and students don’t stagnate.


Author: brodlanj

This site is for my ECS 100 teacher portfolio. I am an joint kinesiology and education student at the university of Regina. I have been studying for six years now, I am currently finishing the education portion of my degree as well as extra minors in french and health. My goal is to one day become a physical education teacher in the francophone school system.

5 thoughts on “A Quote by John Dewey”

  1. Awesome read! I really appreciated this quote that you included in your blog: “Failure can be just as important as success in learning”. I think most people are afraid to acknowledge this thought, especially as teachers. We always want our students to succeed and never want to sit back and watch someone fail.

  2. I love how you related this quote to your personal experiences in math and science. I wish you would expand more on some other experiences. Overall, your blog provides depth and great examples!

  3. I totally agree with your closing statement, “curriculum should be under constant monitoring and should be routinely improved upon so that teachers and students don’t stagnate”. I think that this is a very important aspect of the schooling experience that has been diminished and agree that in an ever-changing society, our ideas surrounding schooling and curriculum should do the same. I also loved your example! Applying in-class learning is a great way to internalize information and we don’t do it enough!

  4. Hello,
    I really enjoy the quote that you chose for this blog post. This quote really makes me think more about how as a teacher we have to think about each student and give them a fair learning opportunity. I thought that it was important that you took into consideration the experiences of the children in and outside of school. I also really liked how you brought your own experiences in to the context of the quote. Thank you for the great read!

  5. The rapid advancement of scientific discoveries means that the subject matter learnt during a particular generation is out of date by the time the next generation starts learning the subject. Teaching them with same philosophies as what was taught to the previous generation certainly robs them of a solid base provided since then. The newer generation will be involved with activities in their lifetime that are significantly more advanced than anything the previous generation had. This requires more modern approaches built upon the experiences of pedagogic theories of previous generations. I liked the way you described the learning of Pythagoras theorem and its relevance to everyday life.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *