Book excerpt: In this single volume, readers will find two of John Dewey's insightful essays on education in America. He considered proper education to be fundamental to a functioning democracy. The problem, according to Dewey in The School and Society, with the old education model was that elementary schools did not encourage exploration and curiosity in their students. In The Child and the Curriculum, Dewey expands upon his definition of the ideal teaching method. A child's life, he says, is an integrated whole. A child will flow from one topic to another, taking a natural interest in subjects and dealing with a world of direct experience. School, on the other hand, addresses a world disconnected from a child's life. A more reasonable approach would be to strive to integrate their experience with the vast body of knowledge that society wishes them to know. By honoring the individual, both the student and the subject matter will come together in a process that produces a mature adult. American educator and philosopher JOHN DEWEY (1859-1952) helped found the American Association of University Professors. He served as professor of philosophy at Columbia University from 1904 to 1930 and authored numerous books, including How We Think (1910), Experience and Nature (1925), Experience and Education (1938), and Freedom and Culture (1939).