Students need to have experience acting politically, performing community services, resolving conflicts, and generally communicating with all kinds of people about all kinds of issues. The passage is prophetic, not simply with regard to children and schools, but social life itself. The inventions and events of the twentieth century have destroyed our capacity to isolate children in a simple world. Children and adults are witnesses to all the events of the world even as they are occurring. As witnesses, they will perceive themselves as being either hapless and powerless or controlling and powerful.
Schools have to decide which kind of citizen-witnesses they intend to produce.
American schools need to provide quality educational experiences in addressing issues of human rights. Sullivan's The Holocaust in Literature for Youth is an excellent resource to support that effort. Work Cited by Brown Dworkin, M., Ed. Dewey on Education . Teachers College Press, 1959.