Booker T. Washington and John Dewey

To be an influential educator means you need to make your stamp on the world. There are very few people who are able to achieve such greatness. There are two men who were both influential in there own ways that I have learned about, Booker T. Washington and John Dewey. These two spent a great deal of there lives educating those around them. Washington educated his fellow African Americans at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute and Dewey educated many of his own students on philosophy.

Booker T. Washington wanted to educate everyone on how to better the economy and one of his biggest aspirations was to stop discrimination amongst different races. He once said; “In all things that are purely social we can be separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all thing essential to mutual progress.” His dreams of equality were the renderings of his teachings. He wanted all to know that he planned to stand on even ground with his fellow Americans and wanted to educate others to do and feel the same as he did.

John Dewey educated his students on philosophy. His ideas were based on a democratic way of life. He taught philosophy in many schools and even taught some of the best philosophers in the world. He felt that; “Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men.” He wanted to educated mankind on the great ideas that his philosophy had to offer.

Both men were influential in educating the world today and without either of them there were have been a significant difference in the way things are and could be. The time they spent educating others was time well spent.

Work Cited

Otto, M. C. (1996). John Dewey. (B. Johnson, Ed.). Collier's Encyclopedia ( Vol. 8, pp. 171-172). New York: P.F Collier L.P.

Alder, M. J. (1998). Booker T. Washington. The New Encyclopedia Britannica (15th ed., Vol. 12, p. 509). Chicago: Britannica Inc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booker_T._Washington

http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/activity/bookertwashington/

http://www.nps.gov/archive/bowa/btwbio.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey

http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-dewey.htm

http://lrs.ed.uiuc.edu/students/janicke/Dewey.html