Dewey's Labor Curriculum Thought, Practice And Contemporary Enlightenmen

There are numerous studies on Dewey’s educational thoughts,but his thoughts related to labor curriculum are paid less attention.Dewey’s discussion on labor curriculum is very rich,but scattered in his various works,and has not received the attention it deserves.Although it has been a long time since Dewey’s thought of labor curriculum came into being,it still shines today because he deals with some basic problems and his thought has certain foresight.At present,our labor education is in the booming period of a new era,and it has great practical significance to study and draw lessons from Dewey’s labor curriculum thought seriously.This paper first makes a preliminary investigation of Dewey’s view of labor.Dewey’s view of labor is the premise of his thought of labor education.Dewey’s view on labor is not only reflected in his direct expression of the concept of "labor",but also in his elaboration of related concepts of "labor",such as "work" and "occupations".Dewey’s views on labor can be preliminarily understood from his series of discussions on these related concepts.That is,Dewey believed that labor should be positive and its purpose should be within itself.It is beneficial to the development of individuals and society,to establish the connection between individuals and society,and to construct a democratic community.Secondly,starting from the view of labor,this paper expounds Dewey’s view of labor education,mainly focusing on Dewey’s essence and value of labor education.Dewey believes that the essence of labor education lies in that labor education is based on labor and labor education is an education with strong social attributes.The value of labor education is mainly embodied in the individual and the society.In terms of individual value,labor education enables children to develop their nature and instinct,bridge the divide between theory and practice,promote the sound development of children’s morality,improve the individual piece-wise development caused by social division of labor,and develop individual independence and creativity.In terms of social value,labor education can make up for the lack of social spirit in education and promote the formation of democratic community.On the basis of these analyses,this paper examines Dewey’s labor curriculum thought and practice.The ideological aspects mainly include Dewey’s discussion on the principles of curriculum design,specific content,organization mode,learning mode and so on.The labor curriculum practice is mainly analyzed according to the practice and exploration led by Dewey in Chicago University Laboratory School,from which it can be found that the labor curriculum practiced by Dewey has historical characteristics,real characteristics,aesthetic characteristics and gradual characteristics.The enlightenment of Dewey’s thought and practice of labor curriculum to the contemporary labor education mainly has four aspects: the labor curriculum should emphasize the educational character,the labor curriculum should integrate with the subject curriculum,the traditional form of labor and the new form of labor are indispensable,and the labor curriculum should pay attention to the gradual setting.