Argues against Richard S. Prawat's (1995) assertion that Dewey did not favor an activity-oriented, child-centered approach to learning. Also, it disagrees with Prawat's belief that meaning, for Dewey, was not just between people, but was also between events and people. Dewey's theories on the importance of language to meanings and the problem of…

Contends that Garrison (1996) overlooks evidence that points to the transactional nature of Dewey's theory on learning and uses Dewey's reconstruction of William James's theory of emotion to support the author's claim that Dewey emphasized activity. Following a brief discussion on intellectualism--that ideas represent the only mode of knowing--the…