Jane Addams And Pullman Strike Essay

Jane Addams and her interpretation of the Pullman Strike had large implications on the fields of social work, philosophy, education, and on one man in particular, John Dewey. After founding the Hull House in 1889, she realized that the top down approach to uplift the community of Chicago was not effective. She soon learned that the Hull House would best serve through advocacy. Addams’ belief that “antagonism was always unnecessary” changed Dewey’s perspective forever. It was soon clear that, for her, the Pullman strike had the potential to serve as a model for what a democratic process can achieve, but the strikers did not identify their mutual interests. The individualistic thinking of Debs and Pullman led to the strike allowed her to conclude,

” The first can be seen in the way he structured his laboratory school. We are not passive receptors of senses there is something inside that is choosing, acting, and selecting. We are not isolated from one another; the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. We are inevitably connected to one another (organic sense of the world). Dewey leaves behind dogma to reconcile reason and faith and he does this through his laboratory school. Through this format of education, the absolute is coming into human consciousness. He strives to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts. There is an underlying frustration from both Addams and Dewey with the dualism of individual and society. Thus, Dewey’s curriculum is trying to impress on the student that everything is connected. Not only is the world connected, all the courses are connected. In this way, the unity can be found in the urge for knowledge and action to be inseparable. Students learn through doing. Over time, through the courses we take, eventually we will reach this understanding of the absolute (Bildung 264, 322). It is through the unification of learning and doing that we find cultural participation and identify mutual interests. The second interpretation for “the unity of knowledge” I believe is the unification between stimulus and response. Without an other, without something to unify with, there is nothing. There can be no stimulus without a