Abstract

Many teachers in teacher education programs are cursorily introduced to Dewey's ‘epochmaking’ ideas on interest and effort through discussions based on the need for child‐centered pedagogies that utilize students' interests. Unfortunately, this strategy often tacitly encourages teachers to over‐rely on students' interests. In this paper, I recommend a way of introducing Dewey's conception of interest that avoids the common pitfall of over‐reliance on students' interests. I argue that if we focus on the changes Dewey made to the expression of his philosophy during a seventeen‐year period, we can help illuminate the force of his theory while protecting against unfortunate misinterpretations.