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Audiobook edition · 2 h 33 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if school becomes a place where children live and work together, rather than a room apart from life?
In The School and Society, John Dewey asks why classrooms remain cut off from the world around them. Factories and cities change how people live, while schools keep older habits. He explores what children lose when work leaves the home—and what education might put back within their reach.
Drawing on the experimental elementary school he runs with Alice Dewey and a team of teachers, Dewey pictures school as a small working community. Learning begins with the child's own activity. His argument challenges fixed desks, separate lessons, and the waste he sees when school and daily life fail to connect.
What you’ll discover
- Learning lost from home Follow Dewey's account of how changes in work reshape children's chances to learn.
- A community in miniature Imagine a school where children live and work together as members of a wider society.
- The active child Explore why Dewey puts children's own activity at the heart of learning.
- Four impulses for growth Consider the natural impulses Dewey believes children bring with them into school.
- The cost of separation Examine his charge that education wastes effort when its parts fail to work together.
Who will love it
For teachers, parents, students of education, and anyone curious about why modern classrooms look the way they do. Readers of democratic thought will find ideas about learning by doing and schools as communities.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Industry emptied the home of learning
- A school should be a small community
- Start learning from the child's own activity
- Four natural impulses drive a child's growth
- Waste comes from splitting school from life
- What the vision gave and where it is questioned
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La escuela y la sociedad
by John Dewey · 1899
John Dewey pictures a school where cooking, weaving and building connect children’s learning to life together.
Challenging2–5 hours to readEspañol
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In short
Why does school feel so cut off from real life? In April 1899 John Dewey, a professor, gave three talks about the university's experimental elementary school.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Industry emptied the home of learning
Dewey opens by asking us to see schools from society's point of view. Machines, factories, railways and cities changed how people live and work. He says education cannot be mended without looking at that change.
Picture a household a few generations earlier. Spinning, weaving, baking and carpentry happened at home, and children took part. They learned patience, responsibility and the plain link between effort and result. When production moved into factories, that training faded from the home.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 4 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1899
- Language
- Español
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Dewey, John. The School and Society. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-school-and-society.
Dewey, J. (2026). The school and society. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-school-and-society (Original work published 1899)
Dewey, John. The School and Society. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-school-and-society.
@book{dewey2026school,
author = {Dewey, John},
title = {The School and Society},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-school-and-society},
note = {First published 1899}
}
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What is The School and Society about?
He argues schools should be like small communities, built on children's activity, and joined to real life rather than cut off from it.
When did Dewey write The School and Society?
It comes from three lectures given in April 1899 and printed soon after. Later editions added more essays.
What does the child as the sun mean in Dewey?
Dewey compares the shift he wants to that of Copernicus. Instead of the school and its subjects being the fixed centre, the child's interests, powers and growth become the centre around which teaching is organized.
The author
John Dewey
1859–1952 · American philosopher and educational reformer
John Dewey (1859–1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer. He was born in Burlington, Vermont, and died in New York City. He taught at the University of Chicago and Columbia University. His books include How We Think (1910), Democracy and Education (1916), and Human Nature and Conduct (1922).
More by John Dewey
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