Chapter 9: Seals’ Theory of Educational Energy Development (Steed) and Dewey’s Law: A (Teacherly) Love Story

Seals’ Theory of Educational Energy Development (STEED) holds that the job of teachers is to create educational energy among the students in the classes they teach. STEED finds its source in John Dewey’s profound insight that “continuity and interaction in their active union with each other provide the measure of the educative significance and value of an experience.”¹ Continuity identifies the fact about experience that every experience occurs temporally, moving from the past into the present and towards the future. Interaction states the fact about experience that every experience describes a transaction between the social and physical environments in which an experience takes place and the psychology of the person having the experience.