Action and learning Reconsidering John Dewey's legacy


Published: Jul 1, 2025
Keywords:
John Dewey Laboratory School Communication Occupations Construction
Δημήτρης Αλεξάκης
Abstract

This paper analyzes critically John Dewey’s philosophical and pedagogical thought focusing on the interrelation between praxis and learning. In Laboratory School Dewey gives emphasis to the constructive working putting at the core of curriculum certain occupations. The rest of child’s activities, such as communication and experimental inquiry, grow out from the constructive activities of occupations. However, after his communicative turn in 1916 Dewey supports that communication, as the peculiar way of human interaction, forms the sociocultural environment where both working and inquiring can take place. Thus, we are able to think the interrelation between communicative activities and learning apart from constructive working and also the interrelation of learning with different sort of working. However, Dewey’s distance from actual pedagogical experimentation didn’t allow him to elaborate how this new understanding of communication can be integrated to the pedagogical process.  

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