John Dewey

John Dewey appears in The Science of Learning (TIME’s special edition on how the brain learns) as part of the lineage of education reform. There he is the pragmatist who “advocated against an authoritarian classroom and argued for one pragmatically relevant to students’ lives,” sitting in the reform lineage the piece traces from G. Stanley Hall and Dewey through Maria Montessori, Jean Piaget, and Carol Dweck.

Context: John Dewey (1859–1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer, a founder of pragmatism and of the progressive-education movement, who argued that learning is most effective when grounded in experience and connected to students’ real lives.

Where this appears

• The Science of Learning — placed in the education-reform lineage as the pragmatist arguing against authoritarian classrooms and for relevance to students’ lives.