思考訓練の教育学的意義

デューイの反省的思考の概念を中心として

抄録

Thinking' is obviously essential and indispensable to education. A great many schools in the nation put forward as their principal aim in education the training of the pupils to think for themselves actively and independently. But in fact neither the philosophical basis nor the systematic method of the training of this sort is, it must be admitted, not necessarily clearly conceived among the teachers. It is thus up to us the students of pedagogical theories to provide them with such a basis as well as practical directions.
For the proper understanding of the problem first of all is it necessary to make an historical survey of the question as it has been treated in conventional logic or psychology. Among the divergent interpretations proposed by various scholars, the author finds Dewey's theory of 'reflective thinking' most revealing and helpful; particularly important is his book How to Think, in which he systematically propounds the method of the training of this sort in pedagogical terms, making at the same full use of the results of psychological analysis of the process of 'thinking'. The importance of the theory has been justly recognized by subsequent scholars, and the discussion, development and readjustment of his theory have been continued ever since.
The conclusion deducible from all these considerations may be summarized in one word that the training in 'thinking' must always be done in direct contact with real, concrete objects the pupils find around themselves. But at the same time it must not be overlooked that such objects can only be effectively utilized in classrooms when they are handled by teachers under some kind of theorectical guidance or principle. The significance of Dewey's theory lies in the fact that he for the first time successfully combined these two aspects of the problem. We have to follow his example and endeavour to find out our own synthesis in accordance to our own circumstances which are naturally different from his.