듀이의 교육사상

A Study on the Educational Teleology of John Dewey

20세기 교육이론과 실천의 논의에서 거대한 그림자를 남긴 사람 중에서 듀이만큼 열광과 비판을 동시에 받은 사람은 없다. 그는 세계의 실재를 절대적인 진리관으로 파악했던 당시의 전통적인 형이상학적 세계관에 도전하여 변화속에서 실재를 보는 상대적 진리관 위에 그의 철학적 기초를 놓았다. 그는 지식과 행위, 마음과 물질, 정신과 육체, 이성과 감성, 자아와 환경, 능동과 수동, 과거․현재․미래 등 이원론적인 가치관에 대해서 경험의 연속적 일원화의 조화속에서 그의 세계관을 구축했다. 즉, 실용주의 철학자요 진보주의 교육자인 듀이는 전통적인 이원론을 배격하고 계속적 일원화의 원리를 주장한다. 따라서 개인과 사회, 이론과 실천의 연속성 원리를 몸소 실천한 듀이는 연구하는 학자로서 뿐만 아니라 사회개혁을 통한 민주 사회 건설을 위해 행동하는 창조적 지성인으로서 열정적인 일생을 살았다. 듀이는 전통적 교육의 결점을 여러 곳에서 찾아볼 수 있지만 특히 교육목적상에 있어서 외부적․부과적이라고 하는 점이 가장 큰 결점이라고 보고 있다. 따라서 외재적 교육목적을 배제하고 내재적 교육목적을 강조함으로써 듀이는 본질적 교육목적관의 대표자로 분류되어 왔었다. 동시에 ‘교육목적은 계속적 성장에 있다’고 단정함으로써 거센 비판을 받아왔었다. 그런데 사실은 ‘자아실현’과 같은 뜻을 지닌 성장에는 과정으로서의 성장과 결과로서의 성장을 함께 내포하고 있기 때문에 듀이의 교육목적관은 과정과 결과, 현재와 미래를 함께 함의하는 통합적 교육목적관으로 재분류 할 수 있었다. 결국 ‘아동중심의 생활교육’과 ‘자아실현’과 그 의미가 동일한 ‘성장’을 교육목적으로 제시한 듀이는 그동안 본의 아니게 많은 오해를 받아왔지만 결국 인류의 교육사에 영원히 빛나는 교육사상가로 기록될 것이다.

The purpose of this study is to examine the educational thought and teleology of John Dewey. John Dewey was born on October 20, 1859 and died on June 1, 1952. He was one of America's most influential philosophers and educators. Dewey critiqued Western philosopher's tendency to hypothesize that the world existed in two dimensions-one perfect and unchanging and the other imperfect and changing. According to Dewey, this Western philosophical and theological tradition reflected the individual's attempt to deny his or her own death and disappearance by believing that a part of the human being, a spiritual essence or soul, would live forever. Thus, Western philosophy, emphasizing a perfect world beyond experience, had misrepresented the issues of everyday life. Grounded in the empirical world, Dewey's experimentalism advised people to solve the problems of life intelligently and reflectively. When some philosophers called the higher and lower orders of human nature, Dewey rejected as a harmful dualism that separated mind and body and theory and practice. Rejecting dualistic philosophies, Dewey devised a theory of knowledge based on a continuum of human experience that integrated rather than separated thinking and acting, fact and value, and intellect and emotion. Educational practice, influenced by Dewey's Progmatism, emphasizes the experience-based curriculum. In the interactive episode between the person and environment, thinking occurs and from it learning takes place. when the person encounters an obstacle or impediment to activity, a problematic situation arises. Moreover, the chief contents of Dewey's educational teleology are quoted as follows : 1) Education has no aims, only persons, parents, and teachers, etc. , have aims, not an abstract idea like education. 2) An aim implies an orderly and ordered activity. An aim means foresight in advance of the end or possible termination. The foresight functions in three ways. In the first place, it involves careful observation of the given conditions to see what are the means available for reaching the end, and to discover the hindrances in the way. In the second place, it suggests the proper order or sequence in the use of means. It facilitates an economical selection and arrangement. In the third place, it makes choice of alternative possible. If we can predict the outcome of acting this way or that, we can then compare the value of the two courses of action. 3) A true aim is apposed at very point to an aim which is imposed upon a process of action from without. In education, the currency of externally imposed aims is responsible for the emphasis put upon the notion of preparation for a remote future and for learning the work of both teacher and pupil mechanical and slavish. 4) The aim of education is to enable individuals to continue their education. The object and reward learning is continued grouch. 5) Since growth is the characteristic of life, education is all one with growing ; it has no end beyond itself 6) Educators have to be in their guard against ends that are alleged to be general ultimate. 7) Our net conclusion is that life is development, and that developing, growing is life. Generally, John Dewey has been criticised and misunderstood as an intrinsic educational teleologist. But from arguments of this study, we could evaluates and conclude that Dewey was an integrated educational teleologist.