John Dewey Is a Fraud

American Thinker ^ | 10/01/2012 | By Bruce Deitrick Price

[SeekAndFind]

It is generally agreed that John Dewey (1859-1952) is the Father of American Education and the Greatest American Educator Ever.

The problem with the labels is that John Dewey, albeit a genius, was not an educator in the sense that most people use this word. He was not interested in teaching as most people understand that term, as for example in the statement "I teach French."

Dewey was not primarily concerned with teaching new information. He was concerned with inculcating new attitudes.

John Dewey was a social engineer -- one might even say a community organizer. He believed that socialism is the future. His self-appointed mission was to implement the transition to this brave new world.

All of his grand theories, his scores of books, and his hundreds of articles can be summed up as a program for making America socialist.

There is one little problem at this point: almost nobody in America was asking for this transformation. So Dewey was in the awkward position of redecorating your house when you didn't ask for it to be redecorated, or more precisely seducing your kids when you don't want your kids to be seduced.

Dewey basically had to ignore law, precedent, tradition, legislatures, voters, elections, expectations of families, and the needs of society. He attempted an end-run, and thus a conspiracy. His project is best called Socialism-on-the-Sly.

John Dewey and cohorts were so smugly confident that their views were correct, they were not apologetic about hiding their plans, using false terminology, and working subversively and covertly at all times.

Dewey and his co-conspirators were professors of education. Schools were where they felt comfortable. When they thought about transforming the country, they certainly didn't think about campaigning for office or writing articles in the popular press (except occasionally).

[G Larry]

Prominently displayed in “Seven Men who Rule the World from the Grave”.

[Madam Theophilus]

A great book that documents this point extensively is, JOHN DEWEY AND THE DECLINE OF AMERICAN EDUCATION: HOW THE PATRON SAINT OF SCHOOLS CORRUPTED TEACHING AND LEARNING by Henry T. Edmondson III.

[driftless2]

One of the biggest pillars of learning that progessive educators have tried to destroy is rote memorization. Like in your math tables. Rote memorization was a staple of my grade school years. I don’t know if they still have teachers anywhere standing at the blackboard with a pointer in hand leading the class in reciting the tables like the nuns at my Catholic grade did. But if they’re not, they should be. Rote memorization creates the foundation from which kids can build on what they’ve learned. You shouldn’t try to hit homeruns until you can first be sure you can make contact with the ball.