Although My Pedagogic Creed is short and sharply focused, it covers a tremendous range. The piece is indeed written as a creed. Each article contains a series of statements, prefaced by an all-encompassing "I believe that."

In addition to the social and psychological dimensions of education, Dewey discusses what we might call “the existential dimension of education” — the idea that education and life are inseparable: that schools should not be insular training grounds or ivory towers, but rather critical portions of the playing field of life itself. "Education," Dewey writes, "is a process of living and not a preparation for future living." Several pages later he returns to the theme with the remark: "the process and the goal of education are one and the same."

He addresses methodological and curricular concerns, including the place and importance of science, art, history, literature and geography. As was to become characteristic of Dewey’s pragmatic approach to education, both method and curriculum were subordinated to the abilities and interest of the student on the one hand, and the needs and commitments of the society on the other.

There is throughout an emphasis on action and activity. Ideas, Dewey argues, "result from action and devolve for the sake of the better control of action. What we term reason is primarily the law of orderly or effective action."

The existential, social, and psychological dimensions of education provide evidence of an irreducible moral component. Education for Dewey is a process of civilization: one of developing, transmitting and refining a social consciousness. Here, as in later years, Dewey was concerned to underscore the social importance of education. "I believe," he wrote, "that education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform. All reforms which rest simply upon the enactment of law, or the threatening of certain penalties, or upon changes in mechanical or outward arrangements, are transitory and futile." Only in the refining of social consciousness does one engender lasting social reform. It follows, for Dewey, that “the teacher is engaged, not simply in the training of individuals, but in the formation of the proper social life.”8He concludes, "the teacher always is the prophet of the true God and the usherer in of the true kingdom of God." (Review written by Douglas Shrader)