Synopsis
Rediscovering Dewey looks at Dewey in two different ways. It contains both a bare-bones summary of Dewey and a more in-depth investigation of the man's educational philosophy. Chapter one is the bare-bones Dewey. In 1938, Dewey compiled a series of lectures to summarize his philosophy of education. The result was a small book titled Experience and Education.6 Often Experience and Education is an educator's introduction to the writings of John Dewey. It was the first thing of Dewey's that I ever read, and for several years it was the full extent of my reading. Chapter one of Rediscovering Dewey is a collection of tenets taken from Experience and Education, so it is a summary of Dewey's summary. It also is, as far as my writing style allows, an uncomplicated introduction to a few of Dewey's main ideas on education. Chapters two and three are a little more difficult to describe probably because these were the most personal. This book, all things be told, is the story of my transition from the mindset of the carp to that of the traveler. These chapters describe the personal reflections that I had about Dewey that nudged me from being satisfied with a very basic understanding of his philosophy to wanting to know more. Specifically, as I started to trust my own instincts about educational philosophy, I found myself drifting away from Dewey and I wanted to find out how much of that distance was an honest difference of opinion and how much was an incomplete understanding of Dewey's philosophy. Books typically get written either because authors know something or because they want to know something; this book got written for the second reason. Chapters four, five and six are the more extensive look at Dewey's educational philosophy. They are the canal. They are not the river the river would be the writings of Dewey but like an actual canal, they flow directly from the source. I have been told by several people that limiting my reading of Dewey to Experience and Education means I've only scratched the surface. These chapters go deeper, looking at Dewey's philosophy of education as described in Democracy and Education, How We Think, and dozens of other writings by Dewey and about Dewey. They are not a rehash or elaboration of chapter one, but a discussion of topics that did not make it into chapter one (because they had not been major themes in Experience and Education). Finally chapters seven and eight take a look at experiential education pedagogy after a more complete understanding of John Dewey has been achieved. One aspect of these chapters is to look seriously at critics of Dewey to see how much of their criticism is about Dewey directly and how much is about the ways that contemporary progressive educators have applied Dewey.
About the Author
Steven Simpson is an author, speaker, professor and editor. Currently he serves as the Chair of the Department of Recreation Management and Therapeutic Recreation at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Steven has been a Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan and he has also taught at the Graduate Institute of Environmental Education at the National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei. He has contributed articles to books, served as the Editor of the Journal of Experiential Education and published articles in the Journal of Experiential Education, Journal of Outdoor Recreation, Education, and Leadership, Journal of Environmental Education, Society and Natural Resources, Recreational Sports Journal, Call to Earth: Journal of the International Association for Environmental Philosophy, Journal of Applied Recreation Research, Chinese Environment and Development, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management (UK), Journal of Geographical Science (Taiwan), and many others. Steven is a coauthor of The Chiji Guidebook: A Collection of Experiential Activities and Ideas for Using Chiji Cards and The Processing Pinnacle: An Educator's Guide to Better Processing, and the author of The Leader Who is Hardly Known: Self-less Teaching From the Chinese Tradition. Dr. Simpson holds a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Minnesota. He and his wife and daughter live in La Crosse, WI.
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