Growth as Educational End

For Dewey, growth is the single criterion by which every educational arrangement must be evaluated. Growth is not the accumulation of knowledge or the acquisition of skills, though both may accompany it. Growth is the increase in the organism's ability to engage intelligently with new situations — to perceive connections that were previously invisible, to act with greater sensitivity and judgment, to formulate problems more adequately, to bring more of herself to each subsequent encounter. Growth is prospective, not retrospective: its measure is what the learner is prepared to do next, not what she has accomplished. Growth is the only thing that matters because everything else — knowledge, skill, reputation, productivity — is valuable only insofar as it contributes to the continuous expansion of the capacity for further experience.