John Dewey's democracy and education: Questions for education today

2016 is the centennial year of the publication of John Dewey’s Democracy and Education. This session is designed to discuss the significance of John Dewey’s Democracy and Education for our understanding of education, teaching and philosophy of education today. To do this, each panelist will address a key issue in Dewey’s text and place it in the context of other traditions in philosophy of education. This panel consists of a brief introduction to our work together on Dewey’s Democracy and Education (5 minutes), 4 papers (12 minutes each) and audience discussion (35 minutes). Paper1 examines the significance of critique of the German tradition of educational theory and points to out relevance for viewing teaching as a profession. Paper 2 takes up Dewey’s notion of “vocational education” and connects it concepts in ancient Greek (Plato) and German philosophy, in order to shed light on what Dewey overlooked and how we might think of vocational education today. Paper 3 examines Dewey’s notion of “philosophy as education” connecting his notion to Darwinism. The final paper considers Dewey in light of the analytic tradition in order to ask what both traditions may offer us for rethinking education in our diverse societies today.