JOHN DEWEY’S EDUCATIONAL JOURNEY IN TURKEY

Ernest Wolf-Gazo

ABSTRACT

This article deals with a visit by the famous American philosopher and educator John Dewey to Turkey in 1924 on invitation of Ataturk and the newly established Turkish Republic in Ankara. Dewey’s visits to China and Japan in 1919 are well known and documented. He was also a guest of the Soviet Union and South Africa in the 1930s. We can say that wherever there was a social-political experiment at hand, Dewey was invited and his counsel highly valued. This was also true for Turkey. Unfortunately, Dewey’s Turkey visit is hardly known and did not receive the attention it deserves.  Especially in light of a social-political experiment taking place in Turkey; however, during the same time, as the Turkish Republish flourished, world history recorded the Russian Revolution and its aftermath (Trotzky being an exiled guest of Turkey in the early 1930s), then the Second World War, drew attention away from the happenings in Turkey. Dewey’s activities are still relatively unknown to the Western as well as Eastern public, or, in the meantime with ideological battles going on, designated as “Orientalism”.  This, of course, tells us of the ignorance and ideological blindfold of those influenced by Edward Said’s Orientalism, although, not totally without merit, only told half of the story; he left out the German scholars’ contribution to Near Eastern Studies, Turkey and Iran. This was acknowledged by himself in the second edition and also during conversation in Cairo, 1999, I had with him. Thus, this article intends to rectify the record on Dewey’s visit to Turkey and draw attention to the fact that the “Turkish experiment” guided by Ataturk was nothing sort but an applied from of the Enlightenment. Dewey, a central figure in the application of education enlightenment in Chicago was the right type of dialogue partner for Ataturk, Inonu, and the newly established Turkish Republic, arising out of the ashes of the collapsed Ottoman Empire. This article understands itself as a contribution to that ongoing dialogue of an applied Enlightenment, despite disappointments and negative circumstances at times, but the “American Dream” and the Turkish Experiment of an applied Enlightenment is an ongoing process that takes generations. Despite the contemporary dismal spirit in international relations, there are still true believers in miracles and true believers that a happy end of the applied Enlightenment is possible.