Moral Principles in Education - Softcover

Although it was written at the beginning of the 20th century, “Moral Principles in Education” is still relevant to education today. John Dewey is probably most famous for his work in education at the University of Chicago and his founding of the University of Chicago Lab Schools. Dewey contents that it is still necessary to teach 'morals' (not in the dogmatic sense) in order to cultivate the minds of all students. The teaching of morals (almost always indirect) helps to create a sense of community, integrity, knowledge, power, and personal satisfaction within a student. The student learns to cultivate his or her own beliefs about the world, the community, his peers, etc. As Dewey touches on in the book, the sense of 'moral education' has been declining in America since the Depression; however, the moral aspect of education cannot be separated from the mimetic aspect, so it seems detrimental to students to try and pull the two apart.

John Dewey (1859-1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been very influential to education and social reform. Dewey, along with Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, is recognized as one of the founders of the philosophy of pragmatism and of functional psychology. He was a major representative of the progressive and progressive populist philosophies of schooling during the first half of the 20th century in the USA. Although Dewey is known best for his publications concerning education, he also wrote about many other topics, including experience and nature, art and experience, logic and inquiry, democracy, and ethics. In his advocacy of democracy, Dewey considered two fundamental elements--schools and civil society--as being major topics needing attention and reconstruction to encourage experimental intelligence and plurality. Dewey asserted that complete democracy was to be obtained not just by extending voting rights but also by ensuring that there exists a fully-formed public opinion, accomplished by effective communication among citizens, experts, and politicians, with the latter being accountable for the policies they adopt.