Live to Learn and Learn to Live - a Secondary Examination of Dewey Take on Education

John Dewey, a philosopher focusing on experiential education, establishes a relationship between education and democracy. He claims that for democracy to flourish schools must be educating pupils on more than just "the three R's" (reading, writing, and arithmetic); students should also have exposure to social responsibilities that teach values which they can then apply to society realistically. Relating to this, students should also have an interest in the topic they are being taught. When the topics are narrowly conceived and applied to the masses, each piece of information is only relevant to a small portion on the students. Since Dewey supports education that is useful to those learning, he is critical of systems which do not extend curriculums to social insight and interest. Dewey's philosophy that education supports democracy is correct in that relevant education is the most effective to the growth of a strong democratic society,

Students must learn about topics relevant to their future, including both social teachings and specific topics which they find interest, for maximum benefit to society. Because curriculums ignore social matters "students of all stripes arrive at college with shallow and scattered educations, ill prepared to learn" (Gitlin). Dewey would agree with the statement that "a strong liberal-arts curriculum could teach (entering college students) about their history, their social condition, themselves" (Gitlin). All are important for society; those entering college ill prepared are those not exposed to social responsibilities. College, being the time for students to integrate themselves into society, is when students end up most lost, for they must learn about social conditions simultaneously. Strong liberal arts in high schools which teach about the past, the present, and an inward evaluation reveal social insight and interest for a student to be more ready for the world before entering college. These students can integrate their abilities into society earlier on since they already understand their social responsibility and society as a whole greatly benefits from this. Society benefits greatly when students are taught relevant subject matters.

Education also perpetuates democracy for the future. Although seemingly the class gap is widening, education has the potential to defer an unwanted outcome: "surely nothing but universal education can counter work this tendency to the domination of capital and servility of labor" (Mann). Education is an equalizer in a democratic environment. Dewey believes that education can promote democracy through equalizing however more so from a social perspective, that is to say if students are taught social responsibility because he strongly promotes the idea of related learning. The Spirit of Education by Norman Rockwell depicts a student being dressed as the statue of liberty by an adult. The statue of liberty outfit is used to demonstrate the relationship between education and democracy. Although the child has a bitter expression on his face - representing his grudging attitude towards education - the adult is smiling so she is excited about teaching for the sake of democracy (Rockwell). This is representative of society as a whole because although students are not necessarily excited about their learning, if they are taught for the betterment of democracy they will eventually become the adults who happily pass the education to the next generation. Dewey is supportive of the idea that teachers want to be teaching because this will ultimately influence the outcome of how the students are being taught. Overall education supports a future for democracy.

Dewey makes accurate claims in that Education must be relevant to those learning to benefit society and that education will lead to stronger democracy. American high schools today are successful in strengthening democracy because everyone has access to an education, and teachers must take the job because they want to teach, for it pays to low for a self driven motivation. The current system however typically applies narrowly conceived topics to the masses. This is what Dewey is most critical about of the current system. Dewey wishes for schools to teach related topics so democracy can be strengthened in society.