In education, John Dewey stressed

John Dewey stressed learning by doing, holding that knowledge grows out of real experience and purposeful activity.

For him the school was a living community where children learn through participation, not passive reception.

Authoritarian teaching methods contradict Dewey, who opposed rigid, teacher dominated instruction.

Rote learning is the very opposite of his experiential philosophy and he rejected mechanical memorisation.

None of the above is wrong, since learning by doing is squarely his central idea.

Dewey set out this pragmatist, experience centred view in his 1916 work Democracy and Education.