Dewey is a Philistine and other Grave Misreadings

In her recent book, All Must Have Prizes, Melanie Phillips makes several claims about the 'disastrous' influence that John Dewey had on education in the UK. The problem is that Phillips gets Dewey quite wrong. She is, of course, not alone in her misreading of Dewey. Using Phillips as a point of departure, I present several misinterpretations of Dewey. Specifically, Phillips and others make the following claims: (1) Dewey promoted ahistoric and cultureless education; (2) Dewey sacrificed knowledge, facts, and subject matter to skills and processes; (3) Dewey rejected the authority of teachers. I point out how Dewey speaks explicitly to each of these assertions.