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Dewey's Birthday
John Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont a few years before the Civil War would begin. -
Searching for his true passion (1879 - 1884)
After graduating from the University of Vermont at the age of 18, he landed his first professional job as a teacher in Oil City, PA. A few years later he was let go off his position. He decided he wanted to focus more on the studies of philosophy and psychology so he went on to study and graduate from Johns Hopkins University. -
John publishes "The New Psychology"
Dewey published "The New Psychology" which discussed the differences of scientific behaviors found in many centuries. He wrote "This work they did, and left to us a heritage of problems, of terminology, and of principles which we are to solve, reject, or employ as best we may. And the best we can do is to thank them, and then go about our own work." Basically,
he was expressing that we need to let the past be the past and for that we should only focus on the future. -
Travels to Japan and China (1919-1921)
John and his wife go on a sabbatical leave visiting all throughout Japan and China. In his two years throughout the far east he conducted around 200 lectures on democracy and social reform to audiences ranging from hundreds to thousands of people who referred to him as "Mr. Democracy." John's teachings were usually translated by Hu Shih, who was a former student of his at Columbia University. If interested here is a short historical video on Dewey:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGjSMqwlP3E
