论杜威“生长理论”中的终身教育思想

On Thoughts of Lifelong Education in Dewey's Growth Theory

杜威在其1916年出版的《民主主义与教育》一书中指出,教育即生长、教育即生活、教育即经验的不断重组和改造、学校即社会等观点,强调教育时间的连续性,教育空间的广阔性,教育内容的多样性以及教育方法的灵活性。这些正是终身教育思想的核心理念,所以在西方杜威一直被视为终身教育的教育哲学创始人。

John Dewey, a famous American educator, has embodied lifelong education ideas in his earlier works “Democracy and Education”. Dewey first explained the concept of the growth and put forward the conditions of the growth . Then Dewey extended growth to such aspects as education, society and life etc. He tried t o throw light on several views as follows： （1）Growth is the nature of man that can be neither avoided nor eradicated ; （2）Education means growth; （3）Education is life ; （4）Education is a reconstruction of experience. （5）School should not be isolated from society. School education constitutes part of one＇ s whole education or learning. One must keep continuous learning even if he leaves school. All these emphasize that education and learning should dominate one＇s life both in time and space. The educational contents and methods should be various and flexible . Those mentioned above are what lifelong education indicates. So John Dewey has always been regarded as the creator of education philosophy concerning lifelong education. Obviously the indications of lifelong education that Dewey＇s growth theory turn out to be quite valuable.