How We Think

How do we think well, and how can schools teach it? John Dewey argues that real thinking begins when we meet a problem, a doubt or a puzzle, and he describes the stages of reflective thought: feeling the difficulty, defining it, suggesting possible solutions, reasoning out their consequences and testing them by observation and experiment. He then asks how teachers can train this habit by building on children's natural curiosity, connecting lessons with real activity and experience, and avoiding mere memorising.

Dewey (1859–1952), a philosopher who founded an experimental school in Chicago, published the book in 1910, and it became one of the most influential works on education in the twentieth century. It applies the American pragmatism of William James, set out in Pragmatism.