Reconstructing Dewey : Dialectics and Democratic Education

In Democracy and Education, John Dewey argues that an education based on the use of "external aims" serves to obstruct the continuous individual growth which is essential to his notion of democracy. I argue that Dewey's claim - which would lead us to question the usefulness of such things as grades and standardized test scores as agents of student learning - is very interesting, but that Dewey is not quite clear enough regarding how exactly the quest for grades and standardized test scores might have the effect of inhibiting students from continuously learning and growing throughout life. Taking my cue from recent literature which has emphasized Dewey's connection to Hegelian philosophy in understanding his concern for continuous individual growth, my paper aims to reconstruct Dewey's argument about external aims with a specifically Hegelian framework to more fully elucidate what Dewey's case would be against typical educational practices. My paper then shows that Dewey's case against grades and standardized test scores becomes clearer and stronger when infused with these dialectical categories - particularly Hegel's notion of determinate negation - and that when Dewey's argument is made more specifically Hegelian, his educational theory can be more easily defended against the claim that Dewey simply wants to allow students to play while in school rather than truly work and struggle with difficulty