No, I'm talking about Professor John Dewey, hardly a household name for most people - but a continual presence in my life.
When I was growing up in the 1940's, John Dewey was a common topic of conversation in my home. Dewey was an influential educator who had an enormous influence on public school curriculums during the first part of the 20th Century.
My parents were very concerned about the state of American education - in part because of what they saw of the elementary school I was attending in Washington, D.C. "Deweyism" was a shorthand phrase they used to cover all the perceived evils of "progressive education" of the sort they blamed on Dewey.
The Soviet Union was the feared enemy and they were very concerned that American children were not being educated in a way that would enable us to win the technology war with Russia. For them, "Deweyism" included a general lowering of academic standards, lax discipline and too much time devoted to non-academic subjects like hygiene, crafts, "life skills" and the like.
They felt that European countries were doing a much better job of educating their children and they particularly admired the high academic standards found in countries like Switzerland, France and Germany.
When I arrived at university, I signed up for an introductory philosophy course and was surprised to encounter John Dewey again. This time not as a misguided educator who helped wreck the public school system, but as America's most famous philosopher and leading voice of the school of philosophy known as Pragmatism.
Twenty years later, John Dewey entered my life once again - this time as an articulate supporter of F. Matthias Alexander, the developer of the Alexander Technique, a method of learning how to improve physical functioning. I had been drawn to the Technique somewhat by chance and was so impressed by the way it helped me improve my posture, coordination and balance that I decided to abandon my career as a research economist and move to England to train to become a teacher of the Technique.
It turned out that the same Dewey I'd been "living with" for most of my life had authored the introductions to three of Alexander's books. The two men met during World War I in New York City where Dewey, who was then in his late 50's, had a series of lessons with Alexander. Those lessons so transformed him - physically and mentally - that continued taking lessons from Alexander, and later Alexander's brother A.R. Alexander, for the rest of his life. The photo at the right shows Alexander teaching Dewey with a hands-on lesson in his Technique.
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