Objectives of Education According to John Dewey
The mentality of considering the aims of education separately as the medium and the goal has been rejected by John Dewey. According to John Dewey, educational activities itself have innate values. These values are determined by understanding the students’ own goals. He has recognized the importance of independent understanding of the children in setting goals for themselves. Social acceptance and utility should also be considered while setting educational objectives. According to him the objectives of education is to develop the strengths and abilities of the child.
1. Utility Objective
Every child is unique in his/her way. Therefore, the aim of education should be to create an environment in which every child get an opportunity to contribute in social awakening and for human development. It is necessary to give the child the freedom to acquire education according to his/her interest. The ‘Pragmatist’ philosophy of Dewey says that the child should take education of the subject which has a utility for fulfilling the life and educational goals. According to the utilitarian aim the education of child should be useful for public life and should provide all necessary experiences.
2. Practical Objective
From practical point of view education should work to increase the social efficiency of the child. The structure of education should satisfy the needs, ambitions, purposes and thoughts of the child. Anything which gives experiential and practical knowledge to the students should be organised and taught in schools.
3. Democratic Values
The aim of education is to inculcate democratic values and ideals in a person, which in turn can ensure their participation in a democratic society. A collaboration in which a person is completely free and independent and is willing to cooperate with others. It should be part of objective of the education to provide a person due freedom to aspire for and fulfil his dreams and ambitions.
4. Adjustment in the Social Environment
According to Dewey’s philosophy one of the life objectives is to remain aware about one’s social environment and to adopt the values of society. The aim of education should be to make a child able to adjust to his social life.
5 Experience Based Education
Education should be useful for the child. More important is that, it should be given using real-life experiences and concrete objects of his/her life. Explaining any concept using example of mall to a child belonging to rural area (who has not visited a mall) will not be much effective. The ‘Pragmatist’ philosophy places more confidence in the quality of knowledge gained from the child’s own prior experiences. The structure of education should also fulfil this purpose. Experiential knowledge remains useful to the child throughout his life and helps him to face difficulties of his life.