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Birth
Born in Burlington, Vermont. -
Graduated from University of Vermont
At the age of 19, Dewey graduated second in his class from the University of Vermont. During classes he studying philosophy under H.A.P Torrey. After graduating from the University of Vermont, Dewey taught at public school while discussing philosophy with Torrey in his free time. He then decided to go back to school to study philosophy and psychology at Johns Hopkins. -
Receives PhD in Philosophy
Graduates as a Doctor of Philosophy from Johns Hopkins University. -
Dewey defines democracy as ideal ethics
While teaching at the University of Michigan, Dewey explained how democracy was the cornerstone of his ideas: "Democracy and the one, ultimate, ethical ideal of humanity are to my mind synonymous." -
Head of Philosophy at University of Chicago
John Dewey the head of the philosophy department at the University of Chicago and also the director of its School of Education for two years. He began to put his ideals of functional psychology into place with his experimental University Elementary school. John and his wife, Harriet, taught the children with the ideas that children learn through "doing." -
Reflex Arc Concept of Psychology (with video)
Dewey's first major work, "The Reflex Arc Concept of Psychology" was published, marking the cornerstone for Functional Psychology. Dewey critiques the psychological thinking at the time, explaining everything effects the way a person thinks and responds. Further explanation here -
University of Chicago Laboratory School Founded
While teaching at the University of Chicago, John Dewey founded an experimental school (giving it the title of a laboratory) to test out his ideas of functional psychology. They taught children through doing and actions, focusing on the current world rather than on memorizing and focusing on the past.This school was ranked fourth in the nation. -
The School and Society is published
Dewey's first major book,The School and Society was published. He explains how schools do not sufficiently prepare students for real life. "Rather than preparing students for ethical participation in society, schools cultivate passive pupils via insistence upon master of facts and discipling of bodies." (Talebi p 6) -
President of the American Psychological Association
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Joined Ivy League
Dewey became a philosophy professor at Columbia University where he taught until 1930 where he retired with the title "professor emeritus" -
President of the American Philosophical Association
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Democracy and Education is Published
Dewey explains the need for progressive education where students education is social and students interact with their curriculum -
Co-founded the New School for Social Research
With his colleagues Thorstein Veblen, Charles Beard, Wesley Clair Mitchell, and James Harvey Robinson, he founded an experimental school where the free exchange of new ideas was encouraged -
Experience and Nature is published
Dewey's most popular philosophical work was published where he made the distinction between consciousness and the mind and mind and matter. -
Death
At 92, Dewey dies from pneumonia -
Titled "the philosopher" of the era
Historian Hilda Neatby declared, "Dewey has been to our age what Aristotle was to the later Middle Ages, not a philosopher, but The philosopher," emphasizing the important role he had not only during his era, but in shaping future eras in philosophy.
