Abstract

Thank you for inviting me to speak today.John Dewey and I have had a long and occasionally contentious friendship. He taught me to think critically, and it is a habit I cannot get rid of. For that, I thank him. More than a dozen years ago, I gave a book talk at Teachers College, where I had been a professor for nearly twenty years. When I finished, Arthur Levine, who was then president of TC, got up and said incredulously, “You criticized John Dewey.” And I responded, “John Dewey would have liked that. He taught me that we must keep thinking all the time.”I consider myself to be a disciple of Dewey’s, even when I disagree with him. Of course, Lawrence Cremin was my mentor at Teachers College, and Larry too taught..