One day in 1938, John Dewey addressed a room of professional educators and urged them to take up the task of "finding out just what education is." Reading this lecture in the late 1940s, Philip W. Jackson took Dewey's charge to heart and spent the next sixty years contemplating his words. The stimulating result of a lifetime of thinking about educating, What Is Education? is a profound philosophical exploration of how we transmit knowledge in human society and how we think about accomplishing that vital task. Most contemporary approaches to education follow a strictly empirical track, aiming to discover pragmatic solutions for teachers and school administrators. Jackson argues that we need to learn not just how to improve on current practices but also how to think about what education means--in short, we need to answer Dewey by constantly rethinking education from the ground up. Guiding us through the many facets of Dewey's comments, Jackson also calls on Hegel, Kant, and Paul Tillich to shed light on how a society does, can, and should transmit truth and knowledge to successive generations. Teasing out the implications in these thinkers' works ultimately leads Jackson to the conclusion that education is at root a moral enterprise. At a time when schools increasingly serve as a battleground for ideological contests, What Is Education? is a stirring call to refocus our minds on what is for Jackson the fundamental goal of education: making students as well as teachers--and therefore everyone--better people.

One day in 1938, John Dewey addressed a room of professional educators and urged them to take up the task of "finding out just what education is." Reading this lecture in the late 1940s, Philip W. Jackson took Dewey's charge to heart and spent the next sixty years contemplating his words. The stimulating result of a lifetime of thinking about educating, " What Is Education?" is a profound philosophical exploration of how we transmit knowledge in human society and how we think about accomplishing that vital task. Most contemporary approaches to education follow a strictly empirical track, aiming to discover pragmatic solutions for teachers and school administrators. Jackson argues that we need to learn not just how to improve on current practices but also how to think about what education means--in short, we need to answer Dewey by constantly rethinking education from the ground up. Guiding us through the many facets of Dewey's comments, Jackson also calls on Hegel, Kant, and Paul Tillich to shed light on how a society does, can, and should transmit truth and knowledge to successive generations. Teasing out the implications in these thinkers' works ultimately leads Jackson to the conclusion that education is at root a moral enterprise. At a time when schools increasingly serve as a battleground for ideological contests, "What Is Education?" is a stirring call to refocus our minds on what is for Jackson the fundamental goal of education: making students as well as teachers--and therefore everyone--better people.

What do the arts have to teach us about how to live our lives? How can teachers use art's "lessons" to improve their teaching? This provocative book examines John Dewey's thinking about the arts and explores the practical implications of that thinking for educators. Philip W. Jackson draws on Art as Experience, the philosopher's only book on the subject, and less well-known observations scattered throughout Dewey's writings to consider the nature and power of art and its relation to education. For those unacquainted with Dewey's thought as well as for Dewey specialists, this book provides rich insights into how the arts might inform educational practice. Jackson introduces the basics of Dewey's aesthetic theory and then looks at the ways in which single works of art can profoundly affect the individuals who either make them or come to them as readers, listeners, or spectators. He considers the experiences of many writers-music and art critics, authors of self-help books, poets, and philosophers-to explore the transformative power of the experience of art. In a concluding chapter on the educational relevance of Dewey's views, the author focuses on two instances of flawed educational practice, showing how a more conscientious application of Dewey's view of the arts could have improved the learning experience.

The purpose of the national Society for the Study of Education is to encourage serious study of educational problems and to make the results of such study available through its publications as a basis for informed discussion of the issues.