DOUBLE TAP TO ZOOM WITH PHONE OR TABLET John Dewey learning, and education should address what the person needs to know at the time, not prepare them for the future. Dewey thought that curriculum should grow out of real home, work, and other life situations. “The school life should grow gradually out of the home life. . . . It is the business of the school to deepen and extend his [the child’s] sense of the values bound up in his home life” (9). Dewey thought teachers must be sensitive to the values and needs of families. The values and cultures of families and com- munities should be reflected in and deepened by what happens at school. “I believe, finally, that the teacher is engaged, not simply in the training of individuals, but in the for- mation of the proper social life” (17). Dewey believed that teachers do not only teach subject matter but also teach how to live in society. In addition, he thought that teachers do not only teach individual children but also shape the society. It is the last piece of Dewey’s pedagogic creed that is the springboard for some of his most provocative ideas. He believed that teachers need to have confidence in their skills and abilities. He believed teachers need to trust their knowl- edge and experience and, using both, provide appropriate activities to nurture inquiry and dispositions for learning in the children they work with. The Teacher’s Role In Experience and Education (1938), Dewey writes that teach- ers should have more confidence when planning children’s learning experiences. He writes that teachers are too afraid that instruction will infringe upon the freedom and creativity 17 COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL