What are the types of modern cases targeted in the philosophy of education

In the history of the development of educational thought, Dewey's philosophy of education is undoubtedly one of the most far-reaching educational ideas. As a pioneer of modern education, Dewey's educational theories once profoundly influenced China's educational reform in the 1920s and 1930s. After a short silence in the middle of the 20th century, Dewey's educational thought has returned to people's view. And it has attracted great attention. As the American philosopher Rorty said, "Dewey and James are the best guides to understanding the modern world we live in". However, in reality, people often have all kinds of misinterpretation and misunderstanding of Dewey. How to correctly understand and grasp Dewey's educational thought? In the author's opinion, for a thinker, we not only need to know what he said, but more importantly, we need to know how he said it, and only through a deep understanding of the deeper thinking of his thoughts can we grasp the essence of his thoughts. Therefore, the study of Dewey's educational philosophy of thinking is conducive to our correct grasp of the essence of Dewey's thought, but also conducive to a correct understanding of the educational phenomenon in practice.

I. The Philosophical Basis of Dewey's Educational Thought

To understand the way of thinking of Dewey's educational philosophy, it is necessary to understand the ideological origin of Dewey's educational philosophy. Theoretical circles have a relatively consistent view of the ideological origin of Dewey's philosophy of education, namely, the Hegelian doctrine, evolutionary thought and pragmatism. Hegel's doctrine is the initial source of Dewey's philosophy of education; evolution-based empirical naturalism constitutes the core concepts of Dewey's philosophy of education; pragmatism is the most direct source of Dewey's philosophy of education, under the influence of which Dewey has gradually become the most outstanding representative of pragmatism.

1Hegel's Absolute Spirit and Dialectic Influence

Dewey came into contact with Hegel's philosophy in Germany under the influence of the famous Hegelian philosophical research experts in the United States at that time, such as Tory Harris and George Morris, and was y attracted by it. Hegel's concept of absolute spirit and dialectical thinking had a significant impact on Dewey's way of thinking. According to Prof. Zhao Xianglin, "Hegel's idealistic philosophy has left inextinguishable traces on his thought, and elements of dialectics pervade his writings", and we can see his kind of Hegelian dialectical reasoning everywhere. Dewey himself admits, "My early philosophical studies were a kind of intellectual calisthenics. However, Hegel's unity of subject and object, matter and spirit, God and man, is not only an intellectual formula; it operates as a great release, a freedom. Hegel's account of human culture, social institutions, and art, which likewise contains the idea of the unity, has a special attraction for me." Hegel's quest for unity, as a deep and urgent longing, inspired and helped Dewey find a way to oppose the traditional philosophical dualism and to differ from the metaphysics of reason. Dewey developed Hegel's idea of the "Absolute Spiritual Unity" into the Absolute "Empirical Unity", and drew on Hegel's "Absolute Spiritual Unity" as well as on Hegel's "Empirical Unity". Dewey developed Hegel's idea of "absolute spiritual unity" into an absolute "empirical unity", and drew on Hegel's idea of "dialectical intuition" to establish the concept of unity of opposites to dissolve the traditional dichotomies of experience and reason, subject and object, matter and spirit, knowledge and action, means and ends, and so on. This constitutes an important source of thought for the holistic way of thinking of Dewey's philosophy of education.

2 Influence of evolutionary thought

In 1859, Darwin's Origin of Species was officially published, which dealt a heavy blow to the invariant theory of species and the theory of divine creation, caused a fundamental change in people's worldview, and had a profound influence on Dewey's thinking. When Dewey recalled his college life, he mentioned that he was particularly interested in a physiology course based on one of Huxley's writings, from which he learned the idea of an interdependent and interconnected unity. This idea of an interdependent and interconnected whole guided his way of thinking in his earlier academic endeavors. In addition, Dewey carefully studied Darwin's monumental work, On the Origin of Species, and wrote a book entitled Darwin and His Influence. Under the influence of evolutionary thought, Dewey transcended the traditional philosophical pursuit of eternal and unchanging, pre-existing ultimate truths, and placed himself in the fluctuating human life, proposing the idea that organisms must engage in continuous interaction with their environment in order to survive, and that this interaction is experience, which consists of acting on one's own initiative and suffering the consequences of one's actions. This experience connects the subject of knowledge and the object of knowledge, the organism and the environment, experience and nature into an inseparable unity. On this basis, Dewey constructed his empirical naturalism and his social (evolutionary) "reformist" political philosophy.

3 Influence of Pragmatist Philosophy

Pragmatism had a direct influence on Dewey's thought, leading him from Hegelian absolutism to experimentalism. Helping Dewey with this shift in thought were the famous representatives of pragmatism, Peirce and James. Dewey had listened to Peirce's lectures on logic while he was working on his doctorate at Hopkins University and was y influenced by them. In terms of belief theory, Peirce put forward a set of "skepticism and belief" theory of inquiry. According to Peirce, the methodological significance of pragmatism lies in helping people to formulate hypotheses, carry out explorations, get rid of skepticism, and determine beliefs. On this basis, Dewey proposed the famous five-step method of thinking. Of this idea, Dewey made no secret of the fact that it was his "kind of free paraphrase of Peirce's views."

A greater influence on Dewey's thinking was James. Recalling James's influence, Dewey said, "So far as I can now discover, the one factor that can be specifically identified, that has stepped into my thought and given it a new direction and character, may be regarded as James's influence." James builds on his predecessors by proposing a radical empiricism, a "stream of consciousness" theory, and a pragmatic view of truth. James's radical empiricism links fragmented and scattered experiences into a unified whole, making the whole world of objects a unified world of pure experience. He characterized pure experience as an ever-changing, continuous "stream of consciousness". On this basis, Dewey defined experience as the interaction between an organism and its environment, and retained the holistic, shifting, and continuous character of James's experience, emphasizing that experience is a process of activity rather than a mental thing. In his view of truth, James believed that validity, usefulness, and success are the fundamental marks of truth. He says, "An idea, 'It is useful because it is true,' or, 'It is true because it is useful,' both mean the same thing." Truth is useful, and usefulness is truth. Dewey inherited and surpassed this idea of James and proposed to test the validity of truth by the effect of behavior, which led to his theory of instrumentalism.

Second, the analysis of Dewey's way of thinking in educational philosophy

Dewey's philosophy of education inherits and develops the Hegelian doctrine, the theory of evolution and the relevant ideas of pragmatism, adheres to the absolute empiricism, regards the experience as the indivisible empirical unity of the interaction between the organism and the environment, and combines the dialectic method, the theory of evolution, the theory of pragmatism and the ideas of modern psychology, which forms his unique way of thinking in understanding the world in a unique way of thinking.

1Holistic thinking

Dewey was y inspired by Hegel's idea of "absolute spiritual unity", evolutionary theory's concept of "interdependent and interconnected unity" and James's idea of "pure empirical unity". The essence of James's idea of "pure empirical unity" has formed his systemic holistic way of thinking, which is used to reject any form of philosophical dichotomy and either/or way of thinking. This is centered on his understanding of the wholeness of life and the wholeness of children. Dewey believes that children's life is complete, so children's life and adult life can not be opposed to the children's school life and social life can not be separated, he put forward the "education is life" concept is to eliminate the gap between the children's social life and school life. According to Dewey, "The school must present the life of the present--that is, the life that is real and alive to the child. A life like that which he experiences in the home, in the neighborhood, on the playing field." Only then can the child's experience become a "living thing that continues and is complete and unified," thus maintaining continuity of development. At the same time, Dewey criticized traditional psychology's mechanical categorization of the child's psyche under such headings as sensory, motor, conceptual, and emotional. He argued that traditional psychology denied the wholeness of the organism and the interaction of the various faculties, typified in education by the separation of body and mind. The child's mind is regarded as a purely rational and cognitive factor, while the active bodily organ is regarded as an irrelevant and interfering material factor. The undesirable consequences of this are: on the one hand, physical activity becomes a distraction from the pupil's work or is used mechanically, without enabling the pupil to gain educational experience; on the other hand, it causes isolation of the "mind" from the immediate work, and the pupil is left with only fragmentary, piecemeal "knowledge", without regard for the interconnectedness of things. on the one hand, and the isolation of the "mind" from direct work on the other, whereby the student acquires only fragmentary, piecemeal "knowledge" without regard for the relations and connections between things, "the very relations that enable us to understand meaning".

Dewey argued that traditional education was rife with such dichotomous and separate ways of thinking that ignored the wholeness of the child, such as the individual versus society. In "My Creed on Education," published in 1897, Dewey wrote: "I believe that the educated individual is the individual of society. And society is the organic union of many individuals. If we take away from the child the element of society, we are left with an abstraction; if we take away from society the element of the individual, we are left with a rigid, lifeless collective." It can be seen that Dewey was against the either/or philosophy of dualism on the issue of the relationship between the child and society. On the relationship between the child and the curriculum, Dewey also pointed out that "subject-centeredness" and "child-centeredness" created a gap between the child and the subject and pitted the two against each other. Discipline-centeredness subjugates the child to a hierarchy of disciplines, dismembering the child's complete and unified experience, while child-centeredness satisfies the spontaneous impulses of the child's interests and abilities, excludes the training of the child's mind, and similarly hinders the child's development. He warns us, "Instead of looking firmly at the various elements of education as a whole, we are left with a variety of conflicting terms." Examining the relationship between the child and the curriculum from the perspective of the system as a whole, he wisely states, "We recognize that the child and the curriculum are merely the two poles of what constitutes a single process. Just as two points form a straight line, so the child's present point of view, and the facts and truths which make up the various subjects, make up the teaching. The progression from the child's present experience to what is represented by the organized system of truths, which we call the various subjects, is the process of continued transformation."

In Dewey's philosophy of education, he discusses the problems of the relationship between school and society, experience and education, knowledge and action, interest and training, teaching materials and methods, labor and leisure, body and mind, and ends and means, etc., in the same systematic holistic way of thinking, and dissolves the dichotomy between them, realizing the transcendence of the traditional philosophical dichotomous, either/or way of thinking. At the same time, Dewey also with an all-encompassing "experience" concept, the subject and object, experience and nature, material and spiritual unity, constituting its complete natural empiricist philosophy of education system.

2 Process Thinking

Dewey inherited the theory of biological evolution and James's "stream of consciousness" theory of variability and continuity of the concept, always look at the world with the concept of process. He repeatedly pointed out that "I regard education as a process of life, not as a preparation for future life." His concepts of "education has no purpose beyond education," "education is growth," and "education is the reorganization and transformation of experience" actually emphasize the process nature of education and regard education as a process of children's continuous development, life and growth. The concepts of "education without purpose", "education as growth" and "education as reorganization and transformation of experience" actually emphasize the process nature of education and regard education as a process of children's continuous development, life and growth. The idea of "education without purpose" does not mean that education has no purpose or does not want a purpose, but it is opposed to the idea of a prior, fixed and unattainable purpose; the purpose of education is constantly being generated in the process of education, and life, growth and the reorganization of experience take place simultaneously in this process. Education as a process is about creating the conditions for the development of the child and ensuring that the child is constantly transforming experience, reorganizing it, and attaining continuous growth.

In addition, this process-theoretic thinking of Dewey is centered on his interpretation of experience, thinking, and the nature of knowledge. Speaking of his understanding of experience, Dewey argues that experience "consists not only in what people do and what happens to them, in what they pursue, in what they love, in what they believe and what they hold on to, but also in how they move and how they are affected, in how they operate and what they encounter, in how they desire and what they enjoy, and in the ways in which they see, believe, and imagine". -- in short, the process of being able to experience." In this way "experience is first and foremost a process of experiencing, a process of undergoing something, a process of encountering and passion, an emotion - in the original sense of these words... ...In other words, experience is nothing but doing and encountering at the same time." From here, we can clearly recognize Dewey's fascination with and esteem for process, and that everything comes into being and exists as process, as activity.

In discussing thinking, Dewey argues that thinking arises in situations where things are still uncertain, dubious, perplexing, and troublesome, and that thinking always tends toward a definite situation. Therefore, thinking is a process of inquiry, a process of observing things and a process of investigation and research. In this process, obtaining results is always secondary; it is the means to the action of inquiry. Doyle, a famous American expert on curriculum theory, quoted two paragraphs from Dewey's How We Think in his masterpiece, Postmodern Views of the Curriculum, "Actual thinking is a process ...... which is in a constant state of flux as long as a person thinks." "The real problem of intellectual education lies in the transformation of natural abilities into expert, measurable ones: the transformation of more or less casual curiosity and fragmentary revelation into an attitude of discernment, caution, and complete inquiry." Professor Doyle believes these two quotes typify Dewey's "process" philosophy of curriculum.

Dewey similarly expresses his process thinking in discussing his view of knowledge. "Knowledge is the result of changing a problematic situation into a problem-solved one by operation," he argues. "The term knowledge has both an active and a passive meaning. Knowledge refers both to the operation or act, the process of knowing, and to the result, the content of knowing." As you can see, in Dewey's view, knowledge is not fixed and immutable; it is both the process of inquiry and the result of inquiry, and the starting point for another process of inquiry. Knowledge is not something that we take for granted, that has been decided, that has been confirmed, that is waiting to be accepted by the student; it is always subject to re-examination, re-examination, and re-confirmation. Thus, in Dewey's case, knowledge means the process of inquiry. As the American scholar Fox puts it, "The important thing to remember in understanding Dewey's answer to the question of what knowledge is is that the question is meaningless apart from the process."

3 Practical Thinking

Dewey's philosophy of education is based on his practice, and the emphasis on practice is a consistent philosophical belief. Dewey in his classic "Philosophical Transformations" always expresses the idea that philosophy is not conceived in the minds of philosophers, philosophy must be in science, politics, religion, industry, and other times of profound changes and crises to find its growth point. Traditional philosophy is far away from people's life and practice because it arises from the philosophers' meditations, lacks a practical attitude, and has no guiding significance for people's life. Therefore traditional philosophy must be transformed, philosophy must have a practical attitude, "it must present the essence of practice; it must become effective and experimental". And the method of transformation is practice, that is, the method of experiment advocated by Dewey. According to him, any philosophy must be subjected to the test of practice. He said, "Any concept, doctrine, or system, however refined and solid, must be regarded as hypothetical. They should be regarded as verifying the ground of action, not the end of action ...... They are tools, and like all tools, their value lies not in themselves, but in the efficacy which is revealed in the results they can produce."

Dewey similarly expresses his process thinking when discussing his view of knowledge. "Knowledge is the result of changing a problematic situation into a problem-solved one by operation," he argues. "The term knowledge has both an active and a passive meaning. Knowledge refers both to the operation or act, the process of knowing, and to the result, the content of knowing." As you can see, in Dewey's view, knowledge is not fixed and immutable; it is both the process of inquiry and the result of inquiry, and the starting point for another process of inquiry. Knowledge is not something that we take for granted, that has been decided, that has been confirmed, that is waiting to be accepted by the student; it is always subject to re-examination, re-examination, and re-confirmation. Thus, in Dewey's case, knowledge means the process of inquiry. As the American scholar Fox puts it, "The important thing to remember in understanding Dewey's answer to the question of what knowledge is is that the question is meaningless apart from the process."

Dewey criticized the tendency of traditional philosophers to think about problems and acquire knowledge in the way a spectator views a complete picture, rather than in the way a painter paints. Therefore, Dewey regarded "learning by doing" as an important source of knowledge for students, he said, "I believe that the real center of the interconnectedness of school subjects is not science, not literature, not history, not geography, but the social activity of the children themselves", for "Epistemology must come from practice, and practice is the most successful method of acquiring knowledge." At the same time. According to Dewey, not only does knowledge arise from practice, but the meaning and value of knowledge is also embodied in practice. He said, "Atoms, molecules, formulas of chemistry, mathematical propositions in the study of physics, all these have first of all the value of knowledge, but only indirectly the value of experience ...... Their significance can only be learned by application... ...Their significance can only be learned by working through them as part of the method of seeking knowledge." Knowledge that already exists has no meaning for the individual actor if it is not linked to the actions of the individual actor. Knowledge can only have meaning and value if it works in practice, in empirical activity and reflective thinking.

4Relational Thinking

One of the distinctive features of Dewey's empirical naturalistic philosophy of education is that he always grasps a holistic understanding of things in their dynamic and changing relationships and in the process of their interdependent and interrelated interactions. This is centrally reflected in Dewey's understanding of "experience". According to him, experience is the process and result of the interaction between organism and environment, and the so-called experience is the discovery and establishment of the connection between things. As an example, he says: "It is not experience for a child merely to put his finger into a flame; it is experience when this action is connected with the pain he suffers." Dewey put forward the principles of "continuity" and "interaction" for his "experience", which clarified the universal connection between things in both vertical and horizontal dimensions. It can be said that the core and foundation of Dewey's philosophy of education is "experience", and the core and foundation of "experience" is the grasp of things "interdependent and interconnected vertical and horizontal relations". His philosophy of education is formulated in this relational way of thinking. For example, in Democracy and Education, Dewey begins with this relational way of thinking, discussing that "education is a necessity of life," and clarifying that education is first and foremost a relationship between human beings from both vertical and horizontal perspectives. From the vertical perspective, Dewey points out that education is the need for intergenerational continuity among individual members of society, a relationship of continuity; from the horizontal perspective, Dewey points out that education is the need for society to communicate in order to survive, and that communication is a relationship of interaction between the individual and the ****same body and other members of the ****same body. In the second chapter of Democracy and Education, Dewey again puts forward "education as a function of society" in this relational way of thinking, and discusses the relationship between human beings and the environment in education. And education is in this complex relationship between man and man (society), man and nature and man and self. In Dewey's philosophical writings on education, we can see this relational dialectic everywhere, such as "school and society", "experience and education", "children and curriculum", "interest and training", "labor and leisure", "the individual and the world", "education and occupation" and so on. This fully embodies the Dewey in the dynamic change of things in the relationship, in the process of things interdependent interconnected and interactive to grasp the wholeness of things in the way of thinking.

Third, Dewey's philosophy of education, the revelation of the way of thinking

The author believes that Dewey's philosophy of education, in addition to providing us with his glittering educational ideas, more importantly, is to provide us with the understanding of the educational activities and the phenomenon of the ideological approach to educational activities, i.e., in the relationship between dynamic changes in the things, in the process of things are interdependent and interconnected and interactive in the process of the practice of realizing the wholeness of the things. This way of thinking can help us to realize a holistic grasp of things. This way of thinking can help us clarify many theoretical ambiguities and deviations in practice. For example, it can be said that the curriculum reform of basic education, which is now underway, has been characterized by many different voices from the time it was launched to the present day, during which there have been a number of heated debates, with experts and scholars from all walks of life expressing a wide range of opinions and views. How should we look at the curriculum reform? What kind of thinking should be held by theorists when they voice the problems in the reform? In my opinion, Dewey provides us with a good way of thinking.

1 curriculum reform should have a holistic thinking

The so-called holistic thinking of the curriculum reform refers to the concept that we must have a whole piece of the background of the curriculum reform, the program, the concept of the land, and a more comprehensive grasp of the understanding and; in the behavior, we must have a variety of factors affecting the reform of the overall coordination. Nowadays, there are many misunderstandings of the new curriculum and behavioral deviations are mostly caused by the lack of comprehensive understanding of the new curriculum. For example, some people think that the new curriculum emphasizes practical activities is "belittling knowledge", emphasizes "teaching back to life" is the original reproduction of life, emphasizes the independent, cooperative, inquiry learning mode is a complete negation of the traditional way of teaching, and there are even others who think that the curriculum reform is to overturn the traditional way of teaching, and there are also people who think that the curriculum reform is to overturn the traditional way of teaching. Thinking that curriculum reform is to overturn everything traditional, or that curriculum reform is just a set of textbooks, etc., all of these are traditional dichotomies, linear way of thinking, not from the overall comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the new curriculum, and will produce such as "blind men feeling the elephant", or "one or the other" or "wear new shoes and go back to the old ones". As a result, phenomena such as "blind men feeling the elephant", "either/or", or "wearing new shoes and walking on the same old path" and "bottling old wine in new bottles" will occur. Therefore, we must have a comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the new curriculum's philosophy, objectives, content, structure, implementation, evaluation, and management as a whole.

There is also a lack of holistic thinking in the implementation of the new curriculum. "For example, in the process of promoting the new curriculum reform, we are constantly trying to promote curriculum reform by solving a series of 'keys'. The key to curriculum reform lies in conceptual change, and the key to curriculum reform lies in teachers. The key to curriculum reform lies in assessment reform, the key to curriculum reform lies in school culture, and so on." However, what is the "key" in the new curriculum reform? In practice, various districts and schools tend to emphasize and pay attention to only one of the "keys" according to their own understanding, so that the reform often fails to make substantial progress. This kind of so-called "key" thinking is in fact a kind of mechanical reductionist thinking that separates the elements and lacks the concept of overall coordination. In fact, the renewal of concepts, teacher training, assessment reform, cultural reconstruction, institutional change, government investment and so on are all indispensable factors in the chain of curriculum reform, and the lack of any one of them will hinder the reform of the curriculum. Therefore, we need not only focus on some of the "key", but to have the overall coordination of the concept of each factor in the chain of curriculum reform have a clear understanding and grasp, so that the overall layout, overall coordination, optimize the allocation, promote the curriculum reform as a whole, coordinated and steady development.

2 Curriculum reform requires process thinking

In the curriculum reform we often hear this voice, that is, "curriculum reform is a success, or failure"? According to the logic of this thinking, "the success of the curriculum reform" is not the end of the curriculum reform? This is in fact a kind of hasty and preconceived way of thinking, which sets a fixed standard for the reform in advance. However, in fact there is no such a fixed standard, because change is a dynamic and complex process. As the famous Canadian scholar Michael Fullan said, "Change is non-linear and full of uncertainty." "Planned change (for educators) is not the cumulative result of a comprehensive strategy development. In fact, it is only one segment in a sequence of change." The Outline of Basic Education Curriculum Reform (Trial) is only the starting point of curriculum reform, not the end point. The entire curriculum reform is an ever-generating process that is constantly moving forward and open to the future, a process of gradual improvement, enrichment, and refinement of education; it has a starting point, but no end point. As a matter of fact, the revision of the curricula of compulsory education subjects being promoted by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China also illustrates that the curriculum reform is a long-term process of continuous refinement and gradual improvement. We cannot categorically deny the legitimacy and reasonableness of the reform just because some problems have arisen in the curriculum reform.

3Curriculum reform requires practical thinking

Curriculum reform is based on practice, and its ultimate realization must also be implemented in practice. First of all, educational theorists and educational administrations should have a sense of practice, and should go into practice and understand practice. However, there are quite a number of theoreticians and educational administrations that lack concern for practice, thinking that curriculum reform is just a matter of setting up a few programs and sending out a batch of documents. However, from the launch of the curriculum reform to the present day, how effective is it? What are the problems? What are the experiences and lessons learned? And so on, there is a lack of clear understanding. Education administration and related experts lack the necessary guidance, monitoring, investigation and reflection on the process of curriculum reform practice, which is also an important reason why many front-line teachers have doubts and confusion about the curriculum reform.

Secondly, schools and teachers should have a sense of practice and take the initiative to explore and practice. Because curriculum reform is a process of dynamic generation and continuous innovation, as front-line schools and teachers should not expect that there is a referable and perfect operational procedure or model for curriculum reform. According to Prof. Shiou, "Curriculum reform is not a model or a physical object for painters to copy, but an attempt and innovation in development, a practice that focuses on the full and individualized development of students and the development of all students." Therefore, each of us should have the sense of participation and the spirit of practice in curriculum reform, and realize the diversified development and continuous innovation of curriculum reform in participation and practice.

4 Curriculum reform requires relational thinking

In the attitude towards curriculum reform, there are those who agree with it, and those who criticize and question it and even those who oppose it, which are unavoidable in the curriculum reform, and if we hear only one-sided voices, it precisely foretells the existence of a reform crisis. But the problem now is that some critics and supporters do not hold a sincere attitude to exchange views on the issue. Mutual accusations and personal attacks are not the attitude of reform. As Michael Fullan said, "Problems are our friends because we can only come up with creative solutions if we get into them. Problems are the pathway to deeper change to greater satisfaction." Therefore, we must look at different voices in reform from the perspective of relational thinking, and both support and criticism are essential to reform