Philosophy of education minus the philosophy

I don't have much to say about this, but I like what Curran has to say in this interview:

I’m a little queasy about is the idea that there is a pragmatist approach to education. I know this is high heresy to say this [laughs], but I really see little connection between Dewey’s pragmatism and his educational thought. I know there are supposed to be obvious connections – modeling both a society and a classroom on the practices of a scientific community, to collaborate on solving problems where you have no authority figure and everyone contributes. That’s supposed to be pragmatic. But it’s only pragmatic if pragmatism is reduced to experimentalism – the doctrine that all knowledge is established experimentally. Even then pragmatism would only motivate one aspect of the educational vision. And it wouldn’t fully justify even that one aspect; neither would it be essential for justifying even that aspect. Philosophers of education who remain influenced by Dewey often invoke the idea that he destroyed the ‘quest for certainty’ and draw a sharp contrast with Plato. They think it’s just evident that if you have a non-pragmatic approach to knowledge then straightaway you’re going to have Plato’s Republic. That’s a preposterous view. If you can’t find any other basis on which to set aside Plato’s Republic, you’re not thinking hard enough. 

I like a lot of what Dewey has to say about education. I'm not a big fan of pragmatism, though. The same is true for me of "critical pedagogy." I don't really have much love for critical theory, but I think a lot of the actual recommendations for teaching that come out of the critical pedagogy movement are really good. In general, I wonder how essential the underlying theories are to the philosophies of education that purport to be based on them. My guess is that what Curran says about pragmatism is true of many schools of thought.