Editor’s Note

Welcome, everyone, to volume 35, issue 2 of Education & Culture. It’s a cold and wet day here in western New York, and that means it’s a great time to settle in with some good reading. On that note, this edition of the journal features three provocative articles covering several key facets of Dewey’s philosophy, including education in a democracy, the nature of experience, and virtue ethics.

The issue begins with a piece by Dustin Hornbeck, Kathleen Knight Abowitz, and Andrew Saultz entitled ”Virtual Charter Schools and the Aims of Democratic Education.” After detailing the expansion of virtual charter schools in recent years, the authors examine these schools through the lens of the associational aims of public schooling as conceived by Dewey, along with their record of governance and student performance. They conclude that such educational innovations need to better align their means and ends with democratic social ideas. Our second article, by Leonard J. Waks, brings us into the classroom to explores the role of guiding intuitions in education, specifically in the context of developing lesson plans. Waks begins by reviewing some of the literature on lesson planning, eventually focusing on the conception of guiding intuitions in the popular gestalt psychology of Wertheimer and Kohler. Comparing and contrasting gestalt psychology with Dewey’s notion of consummatory experience, Waks finds in the end that Dewey’s theory of experience offers the more satisfactory account for thinking about guiding intuitions in the lesson planning process. This brings us finally to Jeff Mitchell’s deep dive into Dewey and Tufts’ Ethics (1908) and its substantial revision in 1932. While Mitchell suggests that teachers would likely gravitate to the later, revised edition of the Ethics, he argues that the 1908 edition, while not a stronger text overall, is pedagogically superior in its treatment of Dewey’s conception of virtue. As he explains, the original text adheres more closely to Dewey’s celebrated ”genetic approach,” while also making ”better use of the cultural resources that Dewey could reasonably assume were at the disposal of his public.”

Two book reviews bring this new edition of Education & Culture to a close. The first is Stephanie Burdick-Shepherd’s review of In Community of Inquiry with Ann Margaret Sharp. This compelling work takes a close, appreciative look at one of the most important theorists and practitioners of philosophy of/for children, and is edited by Maughn Rollins Gregory and Megan Jane Laverty. This is followed by Warren E. Whitaker and Robert A. Martin’s review of Jeffrey C. Stewart’s tribute to the seminal work of a too-often-neglected American pragmatist in The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke.

In closing, I must announce that, after ten years at the helm, this is my last edition as the editor of Education & Culture. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time as editor of the journal and feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to serve the John Dewey Society in this way. I’m grateful for all the support that has been given me over the years by the leadership of the society in addition to the hard-working support staff at Purdue University Press. I’m also pleased to be leaving the journal in the very capable hands of esteemed teacher and scholar, and recent officer of the John Dewey Society, Jessica Heybach. Take it away, Jessica!