An interview with John Dewey on science education

Sooner or later almost all physics teachers are forced by the evidence to conclude that students do not attain understanding of concepts by listening to lectures — no matter how lucid they may be. A more fruitful alternative, which many teachers have arrived at independently, actively involves the students, starting with their own experiences and guiding them from there, through observation and reasoning, towards knowledge with understanding. There is great value in tracing the history of this educational thread: it confirms that the ideas have deep roots and have stood the test of time; it provides clues to the troubling question of why,!! if this approach is so good, it is still not widely practiced; and, more importantly, it allows new thinking to start from “the shoulders of giants” rather than at ground level. One of these giants is John Dewey.