John Dewey“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.”

John Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont on October 20, 1859 to Archibald Sprague Dewey and Lucina Artemesia Rich. He attended the public school system and the University of Vermont in Burlington. He received his PhD from the Krieger School of Arts & Sciences at Johns Hopkins University in 1884. After obtaining his bachelors degree in 1879, Dewey taught for two years as a high school teacher, where he began thinking of pursuing a career in philosophy. He is recognized as an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer. He is was one of the driving forces behind the philosophical school of Pragmatism, as well as functional psychology. He became a professor of philosophy at Columbia University In 1904. He became a leading representative of the progressive movement in U.S. education during the early 20th century.
Dewey wrote many important papers and books detailing his theories. These theories have been a source of influence to many educators in the United States and around the world. In 1896 he wrote a critique of a standard psychological theory called "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology" which many feel to be his most influential work This would become the basis of all his further work. He later went on to write:
“Human Nature and Conduct” (1922), a study of the role of habit in human behavior;
“The Public and its Problems” (1927), a defense of democracy written in response to Walter Lippmann's The Phantom Public;
“Experience and Nature” (1929), Dewey's most "metaphysical" statement;
“Art as Experience” (1934), Dewey's major work on aesthetics;
“A Common Faith” (1934), a humanistic study of religion; Logic:
“The Theory of Inquiry” (1938), an examination of Dewey's unusual conception of logic.
“Freedom and Culture” (1939), a political work examining the roots of fascism.
Throughout his works he worked his key themes into his explorations of different philosophical themes.
Dewey attempts in his work to at once synthesize, criticize, and expand upon the democratic or proto-democratic educational philosophies of such philosophers as Rousseau and Plato. He disagreed with Rousseau's theories as placing to much importance on the individual while Plato's theories as placing to much importance on the society in which the individual lived. Dewey felt the mind and its formation was a communal process. Therefore the individual is only meaningful when viewed as a part of his society, and the society has no meaning apart from the individuals living in it.
He felt it was important that education teach the skills and knowledge which students will need and use in their lives as citizens and human beings. He felt that this was best done by teaching them with a practical element learning by doing this came as a result of his subscription to the philosophical school of Pragmatism. Dewey and his wife Alice put this theory into action when they ran the Laboratory School at the University of Chicago, where children were taught many of the basic principles of chemistry, physics, and biology by investigating the natural processes which went into cooking breakfast in their classes. Many of his ideas, ideas became very popular, however were never widely practiced in the American schools systems, though some of his values and terms have taken root.
Today we see the wide use of various forms of manipulatives to give students a more concrete understanding of things like math. This seems to be a very direct descendant of his practical element theory. Most subjects taught now include many hands on examples and experiments. Teachers are encouraged to give as many real world examples of the concepts being taught. This is at all levels of education, from pre-k. up through college. Many schools now offer vocational programs where in addition to a high school diploma the student also receives a certification in a particular vocation. These philosophies have all become commonplace in the modern school system.
I believe that many of John Dewey's theories are valid today. The core of his school of thought was based on the belief that education should been relevant to the students who are being taught. That alone sums up what modern educational theories strive to be.