Since open communication is also necessary for a democratic society the classroom is also seen as a laboratory for social progress. The only rules to be taught are those associated with the skills of revision and the questioning of one's own work. The focus is on process. This factual knowledge is of little value in itself and can usually be easily reconstructed when necessary. But the two views differ in the way they approach the question of reason.
Pragmatists see the construction of knowledge as a logic-based testing of ideas against experience.
Existentialists assume there is no logic or meaning inherent in experience. Meaning arises because people have to act. Sometimes we do things because an authority figure tells us to, or because we are fearful of what will happen to us if we don't, or because we have blinded ourselves to the consequences of our acts. All these motives have in common the fact that we are acting without inner moral conviction. Existentialist education is too personal to fit a tidy plan.