Although they were contemporaries, they never met. Jacque Ensign (Department of Education Studies, University of Virginia) has concocted a lively fictional conversation about education between John Dewey and Rudolf Steiner here, courtesy of the ever-surprising online anthroposophical journal from Argentina, The Southern Review.  

 

Jacque Ensign writes:

 

John Dewey and Rudolf Steiner were contemporaries who each launched radical worldwide educational approaches: Progressivism and Waldorf schools. Each wrote and spoke about his philosophy and formulated concrete ways to put it into practice in schools. Steiner wrote over sixty books and 6,000 essays, lectures, and articles. Dewey was such a prolific writer that whole books have been published as Dewey bibliographies. In many respects, Dewey and Steiner differed greatly in their philosophies and methods, but they also shared some common premises about education. With many professional parents sending their children to Waldorf schools, it is time to look at Waldorf education from a Deweyan perspective. Read on…