This position paper starts with Dewey's bold pragmatic idea that a democratic society must have an educational system that “gives individuals a personal interest in social relations and control, and the habits of mind which secure social changes without introducing disorder” (Dewey 1916/1966: 99). I explicate Dewey’s theory of learning as “reconstruction of experience” (p. 222). Dewey states that philosophy is the “general theory of education” (p. 328) and that education becomes the “laboratory in which philosophic distinctions become concrete and are tested” (p. 329, cp. English 2013). Comparing practices of teaching and learning and different didactic models from Dewey’s perspective allows us to develop a sensitive approach towards theory construction in general and towards didactic models in particular. That is why I will try to relate Dewey’s educational theory to the didactic models of Comenius (1657/1954), Sensevy ( 2011a, 2011b) and my own model from "Bildungsgang didactics" (Meyer 2012), based on the dialectical programme of Lothar Klingberg (1978).