B. R. Ambedkar; John Dewey; Buddhist Pedagogy; Buddhist Philosophy of Education; Buddhist Conversion in India; Dalit; Untouchable Buddhists; Engaged Buddhism
摘要
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (1891-1956), statesman, scholar, and leader of the Buddhist conversion among India’s Dalit (“untouchable”) communities, studied for his first PhD under the American philosopher and educationist, John Dewey, at Columbia University in the years 1913-16. In this essay, we examine the influence Dewey had on Ambedkar’s views on teaching and education, based on a close reading of the Indian reformer’s hand-written annotations of Dewey’s works. Ambedkar extracted principles of teaching and learning from Dewey that correspond with conceptions of democracy and social change associated with the French revolution (“liberty, equality, fraternity”) and British socialism (“educate, agitate, organize”) which he acquired during subsequent studies in London and on the Continent. All of these ideas were finally integrated with Ambedkar’s path-breaking interpretation of the Buddhist Dhamma and enacted in his role as a spiritual teacher (Buddhist Sattha) to the masses.
