Experience and Responding

This article responds to the critiques by O’Brien and Prawat of my article, “Dewey and Vygotsky: Society, Experience, and Inquiry in Educational Practice.” The central point made by both authors concerns the relationship of process and product in Dewey’s educational philosophy. The authors argue that Dewey did not promote process over product in the classroom and that Dewey and Vygotsky are more similar in spirit and substance than my article suggests. However, when Dewey’s educational philosophy is viewed within the larger framework of instrumental pragmatism, there are clear reasons why Dewey would want to emphasize process (while not disregarding product) in day-to-day education. This article also responds to criticisms involving the relative emphasis Dewey and Vygotsky gave to issues of diversity and individual variance and to the development of ideas of the two theorists.