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Despite The Never Ending Play Of Conscious Correction And Instruction, The Surrounding Atmosphere And Spirit Is In The End The Chief Agent In Forming Manners.

-John Dewey

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Despite The Never Ending

John Dewey

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Despite The Never Ending Play Of Conscious Correction And Instruction, The Surrounding Atmosphere And Spirit Is In The End The Chief Agent In Forming Manners.

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Schools Should Take Part In The Great Work Of Construction And Organization That Will Have To Be Done.

Give The Pupils Something To Do, Not Something To Learn; And The Doing Is Of Such A Nature As To Demand Thinking; Learning Naturally Results.

The Central Problem Of An Education Based Upon Experience Is To Select The Kind Of Present Experience That Live Fruitfully And Creatively In Subsequent Experiences.

...the Moment Of Passage From Disturbance Into Harmony Is That Of Intensest Life.

Of All Affairs, Communication Is The Most Wonderful.

In A World That Has So Largely Engaged In A Mad And Often Brutally Harsh Race For Material Gain By Means Of Ruthless Competition, It Behooves The School To Make Ceaseless And Intelligently Organized Effort To Develop Above All Else The Will For Co-operation And The Spirit Which Sees In Every Other Individual One Who Has An Equal Right To Share In The Cultural And Material Fruits Of Collective Human Invention, Industry, Skill And Knowledge

Since Growth Is The Characteristic Of Life, Education Is All One With Growing; It Has No End Beyond Itself. The Criterion Of The Value Of School Education Is The Extent In Which It Creates A Desire For Continuous Growth And Supplies Means For Making The Desire Effective In Fact.

The Notion That "applied" Knowledge Is Somehow Less Worthy Than "pure" Knowledge, Was Natural To A Society In Which All Useful Work Was Performed By Slaves And Serfs, And In Which Industry Was Controlled By The Models Set By Custom Rather Than By Intelligence. Science, Or The Highest Knowing, Was Then Identified With Pure Theorizing, Apart From All Application In The Uses Of Life; And Knowledge Relating To Useful Arts Suffered The Stigma Attaching To The Classes Who Engaged In Them.

The Bare Fact That Language Consists Of Sounds Which Are Mutually Intelligible Is Enough Of Itself To Show That Its Meaning Depends Upon Connection With A Shared Experience.

Even The Alleged Benefits Of War, So Far As More Than Alleged, Spring From The Fact That Conflict Of Peoples At Least Enforces Intercourse Between Them And Thus Accidentally Enables Them To Learn From One Another, And Thereby To Expand Their Horizons. Travel, Economic And Commercial Tendencies, Have At Present Gone Far To Break Down External Barriers; To Bring Peoples And Classes Into Closer And More Perceptible Connection With One Another.

Science Is A Systematic Means Of Gaining Reliable Knowledge.

To Oscillate Between Drill Exercises That Strive To Attain Efficiency In Outward Doing Without The Use Of Intelligence, And An Accumulation Of Knowledge That Is Supposed To Be An Ultimate End In Itself, Means That Education Accepts The Present Social Conditions As Final, And Thereby Takes Upon Itself The Responsibility For Perpetuating Them. A Reorganization Of Education So That Learning Takes Place In Connection With The Intelligent Carrying Forward Of Purposeful Activities Is A Slow Work. It Can Be Accomplished Only Piecemeal, A Step At A Time.

It Is Part Of The Educator's Responsibility To See Equally To Two Things: First, That The Problem Grows Out Of The Conditions Of The Experience Being Had In The Present, And That It Is Within The Range Of The Capacity Of Students; And, Secondly, That It Is Such That It Arouses In The Learner An Active Quest For Information And For Production Of New Ideas. The New Facts And New Ideas Thus Obtained Become The Ground For Further Experiences In Which New Problems Are Presented.

Nothing Takes Root In Mind When There Is No Balance Between Doing And Receiving.

The Mere Absorption Of Facts And Truths Is So Exclusively An Individual Affair That It Tends Very Naturally To Pass Into Selfishness. There Is No Obvious Social Motive For The Acquirement Of Mere Learning, There Is No Clear Social Gain In Success Thereat.

Education Is Life Itself.

But Progress In Knowledge Has Made Us Aware Of The Superficiality Of Plato's Lumping Of Individuals And Their Original Powers Into A Few Sharply Marked-off Classes; It Has Taught Us That Original Capacities Are Indefinitely Numerous And Variable. It Is But The Other Side Of This Fact To Say That In The Degree In Which Society Has Become Democratic, Social Organization Means Utilization Of The Specific And Variable Qualities Of Individuals, Not Stratification By Classes.

When Others Are Not Doing What We Would Like Them To Or Are Threatening Disobedience, We Are Most Conscious Of The Need Of Controlling Them And Of The Influences By Which They Are Controlled.

When We Consider The Close Connection Between Science And Industrial Development On The One Hand, And Between Literary And Aesthetic Cultivation And An Aristocratic Social Organization On The Other, We Get Light On The Opposition Between Technical Scientific Studies And Refining Literary Studies. We Have Before Us The Need Of Overcoming This Separation In Education If Society Is To Be Truly Democratic.

Democracy Has To Be Born Anew Every Generation, And Education Is Its Midwife.

Democracies Have

Understanding One Another Means That Objects, Including Sounds, Have The Same Value For Both With Respect To Carrying On A Common Pursuit.

We Can Have Facts Without Thinking But We Cannot Have Thinking Without Facts.

The Reactionaries Are In Possession Of Force, In Not Only The Army And Police, But In The Press And The Schools

Anyone Who Has Begun To Think, Places Some Portion Of The World In Jeopardy.

There Is More Than A Verbal Tie Between The Words Common, Community, And Communication.... Try The Experiment Of Communicating, With Fullness And Accuracy, Some Experience To Another, Especially If It Be Somewhat Complicated, And You Will Find Your Own Attitude Toward Your Experience Changing.

As Societies Become More Complex In Structure And Resources, The Need Of Formal Or Intentional Teaching And Learning Increases.

The Problem Of Restoring Integration And Co-operation Between Man's Beliefs About The World In Which He Lives And His Beliefs About Values And Purposes That Should Direct His Conduct Is The Deepest Problem Modern Life. It Is The Problem Of Any Philosophy That Is Not Isolated From Life.

We Have Lost Confidence In Reason Because We Have Learned That Man Is Chiefly A Creature Of Habit And Emotion.

We Sometimes Talk As If "original Research" Were A Peculiar Prerogative Of Scientists Or At Least Of Advanced Students. But All Thinking Is Research, And All Research Is Native, Original, With Him Who Carries It On, Even If Everybody Else In The World Already Is Sure Of What He Is Still Looking For.

All Genuine Education Comes About Through Experience.

In Order To Have A Large Number Of Values In Common, All The Members Of The Group Must Have An Equable Opportunity, To Receive And To Take From Others. There Must Be A Large Variety Of Shared Undertakings And Experiences. Otherwise, The Influences Which Educate Some Into Masters, Educates Others Into Slaves.

Etymologically, The Word Education Means Just A Process Of Leading Or Bringing Up.

The Real Process Of Education Should Be The Process Of Learning To Think Through The Application Of Real Problems.

The Interaction Of Knowledge And Skills With Experience Is Key To Learning.

A Possibility Of Continuing Progress Is Opened Up By The Fact That In Learning One Act, Methods Are Developed Good For Use In Other Situations. Still More Important Is The Fact That The Human Being Acquires A Habit Of Learning. He Learns To Learn.

Nature As A Whole Is A Progressive Realization Of Purpose Strictly Comparable To The Realization Of Purpose In Any Single Plant Or Animal.

When Things Have A Meaning For Us, We Mean (intend, Propose) What We Do: When They Do Not, We Act Blindly, Unconsciously, Unintelligently.

The Activity Of The Immature Human Being Is Simply Played Upon To Secure Habits Which Are Useful. He Is Trained Like An Animal Rather Than Educated Like A Human Being. His Instincts Remain Attached To Their Original Objects Of Pain Or Pleasure. But To Get Happiness Or To Avoid The Pain Of Failure He Has To Act In A Way Agreeable To Others.

If All Meanings Could Be Adequately Expressed By Words, The Arts Of Painting And Music Would Not Exist.

Time And Memory Are True Artists; They Remould Reality Nearer To The Heart's Desire.

Complete Adaptation To Environment Means Death. The Essential Point In All Response Is The Desire To Control Environment.

Despite The Never Ending Play Of Conscious Correction And Instruction, The Surrounding Atmosphere And Spirit Is In The End The Chief Agent In Forming Manners.

As Believers In Democracy We Have Not Only The Right But The Duty To Question Existing Mechanisms Of, Say, Suffrage And To Inquire Whether Some Functional Organization Would Not Serve To Formulate And Manifest Public Opinion Better Than The Existing Methods. It Is Not Irrelevant To The Point That A Score Of Passages Could Be Cited In Which Jefferson Refers To The American Government As An Experiment.

Those Engaged In Directing The Actions Of Others Are Always In Danger Of Overlooking The Importance Of The Sequential Development Of Those They Direct.

Thinking And Feeling That Have To Do With Action In Association With Others Is As Much A Social Mode Of Behavior As Is The Most Overt Cooperative Or Hostile Act.

Expertness Of Taste Is At Once The Result And Reward Of Constant Exercise Of Thinking.

The Young Of Human Beings Compare So Poorly In Original Efficiency With The Young Of Many Of The Lower Animals, That Even The Powers Needed For Physical Sustentation Have To Be Acquired Under Tuition. How Much More, Then, Is This The Case With Respect To All The Technological, Artistic, Scientific, And Moral Achievements Of Humanity!

The Demand For Liberty Is A Demand For Power, Either For Possession Of Powers Of Action Not Already Possessed Or For Retention And Expansion Of Powers Already Possessed.

The Function Of Criticism Is The Reeducation Of Perception Of Works Of Art? The Conception That Its Business Is To Appraise, To Judge In The Legal And Moral Sense, Arrests The Perception Of Those Who Are Influenced By The Criticism That Assumes This Task.

That Education Is Not An Affair Of "telling" And Being Told, But An Active And Constructive Process, Is A Principle Almost As Generally Violated In Practice As Conceded In Theory. Is Not This Deplorable Situation Due To The Fact That The Doctrine Is Itself Merely Told? It Is Preached; It Is Lectured; It Is Written About.

The Ultimate Aim Of Production Is Not Production Of Goods But The Production Of Free Human Beings Associated With One Another On Terms Of Equality.

Democracy Is A Form Of Government Only Because It Is A Form Of Moral And Spiritual Association.

To Be A Recipient Of A Communication Is To Have An Enlarged And Changed Experience.

The Most Important Factor In The Training Of Good Mental Habits Consists In Acquiring The Attitude Of Suspended Conclusion, And In Mastering The Various Methods Of Searching For New Materials To Corroborate Or To Refute The First Suggestions That Occur.

Selection Aims Not Only At Simplifying But At Weeding Out What Is Undesirable.

One Might As Well Say He Has Sold When No One Has Bought As To Say He Has Taught When No One Has Learned.

To "learn From Experience" Is To Make A Backward And Forward Connection Between What We Do To Things And What We Enjoy Or Suffer From Things In Consequence.

As A Matter Of Fact, A Modern Society Is Many Societies More Or Less Loosely Connected. Each Household With Its Immediate Extension Of Friends Makes A Society; The Village Or Street Group Of Playmates Is A Community; Each Business Group, Each Club, Is Another.

Democracy Is A Way Of Life Controlled By A Working Faith In The Possibilities Of Human Nature. . . . This Faith May Be Enacted In Statutes, But It Is Only On Paper Unless It Is Put In Force In The Attitudes Which Human Beings Display To One Another In All The Incidents And Relations Of Daily Life.

Criticism Of The Commitment Of Religion To The Supernatural Is Thus Positive In Import.

Things Gain Meaning By Being Used In A Shared Experience Or Joint Action.

Without The English, Reason And Philosophy Would Still Be In The Most Despicable Infancy In France.

As Some Species Die Out, Forms Better Adapted To Utilize The Obstacles Against Which They Struggled In Vain Come Into Being.

There Can Be No Doubt ... Of Our Dependence Upon Forces Beyond Our Control. Primitive Man Was So Impotent In The Face Of These Forces That G , Especially In An Unfavorable Natural Environment, Fear Became A Dominant Attitude, And, As The Old Saying Goes, Fear Created Gods.

Even Today, In Our Industrial Life, Apart From Certain Values Of Industriousness And Thrift, The Intellectual And Emotional Reaction Of The Forms Of Human Association Under Which The World's Work Is Carried On Receives Little Attention As Compared With Physical Output.

For In Spite Of Itself Any Movement That Thinks And Acts In Terms Of An ‘ism Becomes So Involved In Reaction Against Other ‘isms That It Is Unwittingly Controlled By Them. For It Then Forms Its Principles By Reaction Against Them Instead Of By A Comprehensive, Constructive Survey Of Actual Needs, Problems, And Possibilities.

A Child May Have To Be Snatched With Roughness Away From A Fire So That He Shall Not Be Burnt.

Poetry Has Historically Been Allied With Religion And Morals; It Has Served The Purpose Of Penetrating The Mysterious Depths Of Things.

When Words Do Not Enter As Factors Into A Shared Situation, Either Overtly Or Imaginatively, They Operate As Pure Physical Stimuli, Not As Having A Meaning Or Intellectual Value. They Set Activity Running In A Given Groove, But There Is No Accompanying Conscious Purpose Or Meaning.

Mankind Likes To Think In Terms Of Extreme Opposites.

Social Engaged Intellectuals Must Accept Reality As They Found It And Shape It Toward Positive Social Goals, Not Stand Aside In Self-righteous Isolation.

Each Generation Is Inclined To Educate Its Young So As To Get Along In The Present World Instead Of With A View To The Proper End Of Education: The Promotion Of The Best Possible Realization Of Humanity As Humanity. Parents Educate Their Children So That They May Get On; Princes Educate Their Subjects As Instruments Of Their Own Purpose.

It Has Been Petrified Into A Slavery Of Thought And Sentiment, As Intolerant Superiority On The Part Of The Few And An Intolerable Burden On The Part Of The Many.

The Only Way To Abolish War Is To Make Peace Seem Heroic.

It Is Commonplace That A Problem Stated Is Well On Its Way To Solution, For Statement Of The Nature Of A Problem Signifies That The Underlying Quality Is Being Transformed Into Determinate Distinctions Of Terms And Relations Or Has Become An Object Of Articulate Thought.

Method Means That Arrangement Of Subject Matter Which Makes It Most Effective In Use. Never Is Method Something Outside Of The Material.

A Good Aim Surveys The Present State Of Experience Of Pupils, And Forming A Tentative Plan Of Treatment, Keeps The Plan Constantly In View And Yet Modifies It As Conditions Develop. The Aim, In Short, Is Experimental, And Hence Constantly Growing As It Is Tested In Action.

In The Olden Times, The Diversity Of Groups Was Largely A Geographical Matter. There Were Many Societies, But Each, Within Its Own Territory, Was Comparatively Homogeneous. But With The Development Of Commerce, Transportation, Intercommunication, And Emigration, Countries Like The United States Are Composed Of A Combination Of Different Groups With Different Traditional Customs. It Is This Situation Which Has, Perhaps More Than Any Other One Cause, Forced The Demand For An Educational Institution Which Shall Provide Something Like A Homogeneous And Balanced Environment For The Young.

Mind Is A Verb Not A Noun.

Luck, Bad If Not Good, Will Always Be With Us. But It Has A Way Of Favoring The Intelligent And Showing Its Back To The Stupid.

Just As The Senses Require Sensible Objects To Stimulate Them, So Our Powers Of Observation, Recollection, And Imagination Do Not Work Spontaneously, But Are Set In Motion By The Demands Set Up By Current Social Occupations.

To Pull At A Rope At Which Others Happen To Be Pulling Is Not A Shared Or Conjoint Activity, Unless The Pulling Is Done With Knowledge That Others Are Pulling And For The Sake Of Either Helping Or Hindering What They Are Doing.

A Tribe, Let Us Say, Is Warlike. The Successes For Which It Strives, The Achievements Upon Which It Sets Store, Are Connected With Fighting And Victory.

An Inanimate Being Is, Of Course, Continuous With Its Surroundings; But The Environing Circumstances Do Not, Save Metaphorically, Constitute An Environment. For The Inorganic Being Is Not Concerned In The Influences Which Affect It.

Men's Fundamental Attitudes Toward The World Are Fixed By The Scope And Qualities Of The Activities In Which They Partake.

The Real Purveyors Of The News Are Artists, For Artists Are The Ones Who Infuse Fact With Perception, Emotion, And Appreciation...we Are Beginning To Realize That Emotions And Imagination Are More Potent In Shaping Public Sentiment And Opinion Than Information And Reason.

As A Society Becomes More Enlightened, It Realizes That It Is Responsible Not To Transmit And Conserve The Whole Of Its Existing Achievements, But Only Such As Make For A Better Future Society. The School Is Its Chief Agency For The Accomplishment Of This End.

The Theory Of The Method Of Knowing Which Is Advanced In These Pages May Be Termed Pragmatic. ... Only That Which Has Been Organized Into Our Disposition So As To Enable Us To Adapt The Environment To Our Needs And Adapt Our Aims And Desires To The Situation In Which We Live Is Really Knowledge.

Schools Are, Indeed, One Important Method Of The Transmission Which Forms The Dispositions Of The Immature; But It Is Only One Means, And, Compared With Other Agencies, A Relatively Superficial Means. Only As We Have Grasped The Necessity Of More Fundamental And Persistent Modes Of Tuition Can We Make Sure Of Placing The Scholastic Methods In Their True Context.

The School Must Be "a Genuine Form Of Active Community Life, Instead Of A Place Set Apart In Which To Learn Lessons".

All Learning Begins When Our Comfortable Ideas Turn Out To Be Inadequate.

Fundamental Modes Of Speech, The Bulk Of The Vocabulary, Are Formed In The Ordinary Intercourse Of Life, Carried On Not As A Set Means Of Instruction But As A Social Necessity.

The Most Important Attitude That Can Be Formed Is That Of Desire To Go On Learning.

Historically The Great Movements For Human Liberation Have Always Been Movements To Change Institutions And Not To Preserve Them Intact. It Follows From What Has Been Said That There Have Been Movements To Bring About A Changed Distribution Of Power To Do - And Power To Think And To Express Thought Is A Power To Do- So That There Would Be A More Balanced, A More Equal, Even, And Equitable System Of Human Liberties.

Distribution Of Power

Teaching Can Be Compared To Selling Commodities. No One Can Sell Unless Someone Buys ... Yet There Are Teachers Who Think They Have Done A Good Day's Teaching Irrespective Of What The Pupils Have Learned.

We Always Live At The Time We Live And Not At Some Other Time, And Only By Extracting At Each Present Time The Full Meaning Of Each Present Experience Are We Prepared For Doing The Same Thing In The Future.

Even When A Person Is Frightened By Threats Into Doing Something, The Threats Work Only Because The Person Has An Instinct Of Fear. If He Has Not, Or If, Though Having It, It Is Under His Own Control, The Threat Has No More Influence Upon Him Than Light Has In Causing A Person To See Who Has No Eyes.

We Never Educate Directly, But Indirectly By Means Of The Environment. Whether We Permit Chance Environments To Do The Work, Or Whether We Design Environments For The Purpose Makes A Great Difference.

When A School Introduces And Trains Each Child Of Society Into Membership Within Such A Little Community, Saturating Him With The Spirit Of Service, And Providing Him With The Instruments Of Effective Self-direction, We Shall Have The Deepest And Best Guaranty Of A Larger Society Which Is Worthy, Lovely, And Harmonious

To Have An Idea Of A Thing Is Not Just To Get Certain Sensations From It. It Is To Be Able To Respond To The Thing In View Of Its Place In An Inclusive Scheme Of Action; It Is To Foresee The Drift And Probable Consequence Of The Action Of The Thing Upon Us And Of Our Action Upon It.

We Have Already Noticed The Difference In The Attitude Of A Spectator And Of An Agent Or Participant. The Former Is Indifferent To What Is Going On; One Result Is Just As Good As Another, Since Each Is Just Something To Look At. The Latter Is Bound Up With What Is Going On; Its Outcome Makes A Difference To Him.

Making A Difference

Society Exists Through A Process Of Transmission Quite As Much As Biological Life. This Transmission Occurs By Means Of Communication Of Habits Of Doing, Thinking, And Feeling From The Older To The Younger.

The Conception Of Education As A Social Process And Function Has No Definite Meaning Until We Define The Kind Of Society We Have In Mind.

Of These Three Words, Direction, Control, And Guidance, The Last Best Conveys The Idea Of Assisting Through Cooperation The Natural Capacities Of The Individuals Guided; Control Conveys Rather The Notion Of An Energy Brought To Bear From Without And Meeting Some Resistance From The One Controlled; Direction Is A More Neutral Term And Suggests The Fact That The Active Tendencies Of Those Directed Are Led In A Certain Continuous Course, Instead Of Dispersing Aimlessly.

To Find Out What One Is Fitted To Do, And To Secure An Opportunity To Do It, Is The Key To Happiness.

One Of The Saddest Things About Us Education Is That The Wisdom Of Our Most Successful Teachers Is Lost To The Profession When They Retire.

The Parts Of A Machine Work With A Maximum Of Cooperativeness For A Common Result, But They Do Not Form A Community. If, However, They Were All Cognizant Of The Common End And All Interested In It So That They Regulated Their Specific Activity In View Of It, Then They Would Form A Community. But This Would Involve Communication. Each Would Have To Know What The Other Was About And Would Have To Have Some Way Of Keeping The Other Informed As To His Own Purpose And Progress.

Purposeful Action Is Thus The Goal Of All That Is Truly Educative.

Legislation Is A Matter Of More Or Less Intelligent Improvisation Aiming At Palliating Conditions By Means Of Patchwork Policies.

How Many Students ... Were Rendered Callous To Ideas, And How Many Lost The Impetus To Learn Because Of The Way In Which Learning Was Experienced By Them?

Nature Is The Mother And The Habitat Of Man, Even If Sometimes A Stepmother And An Unfriendly Home.

Education, In Its Broadest Sense, Is The Means Of This Social Continuity Of Life.

Forty Years Spent In Wandering In A Wilderness Like That Of The Present Is Not A Sad Fate - Unless One Attempts To Make Himself Believe That The Wilderness Is After All Itself The Promised Land.

Creative Thinking Will Improve As We Relate The New Fact To The Old And All Facts To Each Other.

One Can Think Effectively Only When One Is Willing To Endure Suspense And To Undergo The Trouble Of Searching.

Men Have Gone On To Build Up Vast Intellectual Schemes, Philosophies, And Theologies, To Prove That Ideals Are Not Real As Ideals But As Antecedently Existing Actualities. They Have Failed To See That In Converting Moral Realities Into Matters Of Intellectual Assent They Have Evinced Lack Of Moral Faith.

The Intimation Never Wholly Deserts Us That There Is, In The Unformed Activities Of Childhood And Youth, The Possibilities Of A Better Life For The Community As Well As For Individuals Here And There. This Dim Sense Is The Ground Of Our Abiding Idealization Of Childhood.

One Lives With So Many Bad Deeds On One's Conscience And Some Good Intentions In One's Heart.

Good Intentions

Any Education Given By A Group Tends To Socialize Its Members, But The Quality And The Value Of The Socialization Depends Upon The Habits And Aims Of The Group. Hence, Once More, The Need Of A Measure For The Worth Of Any Given Mode Of Social Life.

Traveling Is A Constant Arriving, While Arrival That Precludes Further Traveling Is Most Easily Attained By Going To Sleep Or Dying.

The Acquisition However Perfectly Of Skills Is Not An End In Itself. They Are Things To Be Put To Use As A Contribution To A Common And Shared Life.

A Society Which Makes Provision For Participation In Its Good Of All Its Members On Equal Terms And Which Secures Flexible Readjustment Of Its Institutions Through Interaction Of The Different Forms Of Associated Life Is In So Far Democratic. Such A Society Must Have A Type Of Education Which Gives Individuals A Personal Interest In Social Relationships And Control, And The Habits Of Mind Which Secure Social Changes Without Introducing Disorder.

A Large Part Of The Art Of Instruction Lies In Making The Difficulty Of New Problems Large Enough To Challenge Thought, And Small Enough So That, In Addition To The Confusion Naturally Attending The Novel Elements, There Shall Be Luminous Familiar Spots From Which Helpful Suggestions May Spring.

Education, Therefore, Is A Process Of Living And Not A Preparation For Future Living.

In Undeveloped Social Groups, We Find Very Little Formal Teaching And Training. Savage Groups Mainly Rely For Instilling Needed Dispositions Into The Young Upon The Same Sort Of Association Which Keeps Adults Loyal To Their Group. They Have No Special Devices, Material, Or Institutions For Teaching Save In Connection With Initiation Ceremonies By Which The Youth Are Inducted Into Full Social Membership. For The Most Part, They Depend Upon Children Learning The Customs Of The Adults, Acquiring Their Emotional Set And Stock Of Ideas, By Sharing In What The Elders Are Doing.

Every One Has Experienced How Learning An Appropriate Name For What Was Dim And Vague Cleared Up And Crystallized The Whole Matter. Some Meaning Seems Distinct Almost Within Reach, But Is Elusive; It Refuses To Condense Into Definite Form; The Attaching Of A Word Somehow (just How, It Is Almost Impossible To Say) Puts Limits Around The Meaning, Draws It Out From The Void, Makes It Stand Out As An Entity On Its Own Account.

If The Members Who Compose A Society Lived On Continuously, They Might Educate The New-born Members, But It Would Be A Task Directed By Personal Interest Rather Than Social Need. Now It Is A Work Of Necessity.

The Aim Of Education Is To Enable Individuals To Continue Their Education — Or That The Object And Reward Of Learning Is Continued Capacity For Growth.

Democracies Have

To Avoid A Split Between What Men Consciously Know Because They Are Aware Of Having Learned It By A Specific Job Of Learning, And What They Unconsciously Know Because They Have Absorbed It In The Formation Of Their Characters By Intercourse With Others, Becomes An Increasingly Delicate Task With Every Development Of Special Schooling.

Arriving At One Goal Is The Starting Point To Another.

Failure Is Instructive. The Person Who Really Thinks Learns Quite As Much From His Failures As From His Successes. Genuine Ignorance Is Profitable Because It Is Likely To Be Accompanied By Humility, Curiosity, And Open-mindedness; Whereas Ability To Repeat Catch-phrases, Can't Terms, Familiar Propositions, Gives The Conceit Of Learning And Coats The Mind With Varnish Waterproof To New Ideas.

Even Dogs And Horses Have Their Actions Modified By Association With Human Beings; They Form Different Habits Because Human Beings Are Concerned With What They Do.

Unless Our Laboratory Results Are To Give Us Artificialities, Mere Scientific Curiosities, They Must Be Subjected To Interpretation By Gradual Re-approximation To Conditions Of Life.

Knowledge Is No Longer An Immobile Solid; It Has Been Liquefied. It Is Actively Moving In All The Currents Of Society Itself

As A Child Lives Today, He Will Live Tomorrow.

When The Child Sees The Parent Looking For Something, It Is As Natural For It Also To Look For The Object And To Give It Over When It Finds It, As It Was, Under Other Circumstances, To Receive It. Multiply Such An Instance By The Thousand Details Of Daily Intercourse, And One Has A Picture Of The Most Permanent And Enduring Method Of Giving Direction To The Activities Of The Young.

Such Happiness As Life Is Capable Of Comes From The Full Participation Of All Our Powers In The Endeavor To Wrest From Each Changing Situations Of Experience Its Own Full And Unique Meaning.

Some Things Which Are Remote In Space And Time From A Living Creature, Especially A Human Creature, May Form His Environment Even More Truly Than Some Of The Things Close To Him.

We Do Not Learn From Experience...we Learn From Reflecting On Experience.

Learning From Mistakes

Learning Experience

Just Because Life Signifies Not Bare Passive Existence (supposing There Is Such A Thing), But A Way Of Acting, Environment Or Medium Signifies What Enters Into This Activity As A Sustaining Or Frustrating Condition.

Everything Which Bars Freedom And Fullness Of Communication Sets Up Barriers That Divide Human Beings Into Sets And Cliques, Into Antagonistic Sects And Factions, And Thereby Undermines The Democratic Way Of Life.

I Believe That The School Must Represent Present Life - Life As Real And Vital To The Child As That Which He Carries On In The Home, In The Neighborhood, Or On The Play-ground.

Politics Is The Shadow Cast On Society By Big Business.

An Undesirable Society, In Other Words, Is One Which Internally And Externally Sets Up Barriers To Free Intercourse And Communication Of Experience.

Liberty Is Not Just An Idea, An Abstract Principle. It Is Power, Effective Power To Do Specific Things. There Is No Such Thing As Liberty In General; Liberty, So To Speak, At Large.

Conflict Is The Gadfly Of Thought. It Stirs Us To Observation And Memory. It Instigates Invention. It Shocks Us Out Of Sheep-like Passivity, And Sets Us At Noting And Contriving…conflict Is A Sine Qua Non Of Reflection And Ingenuity.

If Humanity Has Made Some Headway In Realizing That The Ultimate Value Of Every Institution Is Its Distinctively Human Effect - Its Effect Upon Conscious Experience - We May Well Believe That This Lesson Has Been Learned Largely Through Dealings With The Young.

A Man Really Living Alone (alone Mentally As Well As Physically) Would Have Little Or No Occasion To Reflect Upon His Past Experience To Extract Its Net Meaning.

Intellectually Religious Emotions Are Not Creative But Conservative. They Attach Themselves Readily To The Current View Of The World And Consecrate It.

Resort To Military Force Is A First Sure Sign That We Are Giving Up The Struggle For The Democratic Way Of Life, And That The Old World Has Conquered Morally As Well As Geographically Succeeding In Imposing Upon Us Its Ideals And Methods.

How Can The Child Learn To Be A Free And Responsible Citizen When The Teacher Is Bound?

When Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Medicine, Contribute To The Detection Of Concrete Human Woes And To The Development Of Plans For Remedying Them And Relieving The Human Estate, They Become Moral; They Become Part Of The Apparatus Of Moral Inquiry Or Science? When The Consciousness Of Science Is Fully Impregnated With The Consciousness Of Human Value, The Greatest Dualism Which Now Weighs Humanity Down, The Split Between The Material, The Mechanical And The Scientific And The Moral And Ideal Will Be Destroyed.

By Reading The Characteristic Features Of Any Man's Castles In The Air You Can Make A Shrewd Guess As To His Underlying Desires Which Are Frustrated.

By Doing His Share In The Associated Activity, The Individual Appropriates The Purpose Which Actuates It, Becomes Familiar With Its Methods And Subject Matters, Acquires Needed Skill, And Is Saturated With Its Emotional Spirit.

If We Teach Today’s Students As We Taught Yesterday’s, We Rob Them Of Tomorrow.

Not Perfection As A Final Goal, But The Ever-enduring Process Of Perfecting, Maturing, Refining Is The Aim Of Living.

It Is Obvious To Any Observer That In Every Western Country The Increase Of Importance Of Public Schools Has Been At Least Coincident With The Relaxation Of Older Family Ties.

No System Has Ever As Yet Existed Which Did Not In Some Form Involve The Exploitation Of Some Human Beings For The Advantage Of Others.

We Rarely Recognize The Extent In Which Our Conscious Estimates Of What Is Worth While And What Is Not, Are Due To Standards Of Which We Are Not Conscious At All.

Adults Are Naturally Most Conscious Of Directing The Conduct Of Others When They Are Immediately Aiming So To Do. As A Rule, They Have Such An Aim Consciously When They Find Themselves Resisted; When Others Are Doing Things They Do Not Wish Them To Do. But The More Permanent And Influential Modes Of Control Are Those Which Operate From Moment To Moment Continuously Without Such Deliberate Intention On Our Part.

Talk Of Democracy Has Little Content When Big Business Rules The Life Of The Country Through Its Control Of The Means Of Production, Exchange, The Press And Other Means Of Publicity, Propaganda And Communication.

Any Experience, However, Trivial In Its First Appearance, Is Capable Of Assuming An Indefinite Richness Of Significance By Extending Its Range Of Perceived Connections.

There's All The Difference In The World Between Having Something To Say, And Having To Say Something.

From The Standpoint Of The Child, The Great Waste In The School Comes From His Inability To Utilize The Experiences He Gets Outside The School In Any Complete And Free Way Within The School Itself; While, On The Other Hand, He Is Unable To Apply In Daily Life What He Is Learning At School. That Is The Isolation Of The School — Its Isolation From Life.

Written Symbols Are Even More Artificial Or Conventional Than Spoken; They Cannot Be Picked Up In Accidental Intercourse With Others. In Addition, The Written Form Tends To Select And Record Matters Which Are Comparatively Foreign To Everyday Life.

Democracy Means The Belief That Humanistic Culture Should Prevail.

You Can Teach Students To Develop The Ability To Think Reflectively, And You Can Help Them Understand What This Means, But If They Are Not Inclined To Do So They Never Will.

Man Lives In A World Of Surmise, Of Mystery, Of Uncertainties.

Just As A Flower Which Seems Beautiful And Has Color But No Perfume, So Are The Fruitless Words Of The Man Who Speaks Them But Does Them Not.

Knowledge Is Humanistic In Quality Not Because It Is About Human Products In The Past, But Because Of What It Does In Liberating Human Intelligence And Human Sympathy. Any Subject Matter Which Accomplishes This Result Is Humane, And Any Subject Matter Which Does Not Accomplish It Is Not Even Educational.

Time With His Old Flail Beat Me Full Sore; Till: Hold, I Cried, I'll Stand No More. Then I Heard A Wail And Looking Spied How Love's Little Bow Had Laid Time Low.

Education Is Not Preparation For Life; Education Is Life Itself.

Thought Is Impossible Without Words.

The Imagination Is The Medium Of Appreciation In Every Field. The Engagement Of The Imagination Is The Only Thing That Makes Any Activity More Than Mechanical. Unfortunately, It Is Too Customary To Identify The Imaginative With The Imaginary, Rather Than With A Warm And Intimate Taking In Of The Full Scope Of A Situation.

Personality Must Be Educated, And Personality Cannot Be Educated By Confining Its Operations To Technical And Specialized Things, Or To The Less Important Relationships Of Life. Full Education Comes Only When There Is A Responsible Share On The Part Of Each Person, In Proportion To Capacity, In Shaping The Aims And Policies Of The Social Groups To Which He Belongs.

Important Relationships

Teaching May Be Compared To Selling Commodities. No One Can Sell Unless Somebody Buys.

Hunger Not To Have, But To Be

The Teacher Loses The Position Of External Boss Or Dictator But Takes On That Of Leader Of Group Activities

In General, Every Stimulus Directs Activity. It Does Not Simply Excite It Or Stir It Up, But Directs It Toward An Object.

Schools Should Take An Active Part In Directing Social Change, And Share In The Construction Of A New Social Order

No Government By Experts In Which The Masses Do Not Have The Chance To Inform The Experts As To Their Needs Can Be Anything But An Oligarchy Managed In The Interest Of The Few. And The Enlightenment Must Proceed In Ways Which Force The Administrative Specialists To Take Account Of The Needs. The World Has Suffered More From Leaders And Authorities Than From The Masses. The Essential Need ... Is The Improvement Of The Methods And Conditions Of Debate, Discussion And Persuasion. That Is The Problem Of The Public.

The Struggle For Democracy Has To Be Maintained On As Many Fronts As Culture Has Aspects: Political, Economic, International, Educational, Scientific And Artistic, Religious.

To Savages It Would Seem Preposterous To Seek Out A Place Where Nothing But Learning Was Going On In Order That One Might Learn.

Since Education Is Not A Means To Living, But Is Identical With The Operation Of Living A Life Which Is Fruitful And Inherently Significant, The Only Ultimate Value Which Can Be Set Up Is Just The Process Of Living Itself. And This Is Not An End To Which Studies And Activities Are Subordinate Means; It Is The Whole Of Which They Are Ingredients.

Good Manners Come, As We Say, From Good Breeding Or Rather Are Good Breeding; And Breeding Is Acquired By Habitual Action, In Response To Habitual Stimuli, Not By Conveying Information.

Without Some Goals And Some Efforts To Reach It, No Man Can Live.

Man Is Not Logical And His Intellectual History Is A Record Of Mental Reserves And Compromises. He Hangs On To What He Can In His Old Beliefs Even When He Is Compelled To Surrender Their Logical Basis.

The Difference Between Play And What Is Regarded As Serious Employment Should Be Not A Difference Between The Presence And Absence Of Imagination, But A Difference In The Materials With Which Imagination Is Occupied.

I Believe That The School Is Primarily A Social Institution. Education Being A Social Process, The School Is Simply That Form Of Community Life In Which All Those Agencies Are Concentrated That Will Be Most Effective In Bringing The Child To Share In The Inherited Resources Of The Race, And To Use His Own Powers For Social Ends. I Believe That Education, Therefore, Is A Process Of Living And Not A Preparation For Future Living.

The Deepest Urge In Human Nature Is The Desire To Feel Important.

If The Eyes Are Open And There Is Light, Seeing Occurs; The Stimulus Is But A Condition Of The Fulfillment Of The Proper Function Of The Organ, Not An Outside Interruption. To Some Extent, Then, All Direction Or Control Is A Guiding Of Activity To Its Own End; It Is An Assistance In Doing Fully What Some Organ Is Already Tending To Do.

There Is More Than A Verbal Tie Between The Words Common, Community, And Communication.

Scientific Principles And Laws Do Not Lie On The Surface Of Nature. They Are Hidden, And Must Be Wrested From Nature By An Active And Elaborate Technique Of Inquiry.

Popular Psychology Is A Mass Of Cant, Of Slush And Of Superstition Worthy Of The Most Flourishing Days Of The Medicine Man.

Modern Philosophy Certainly Exacts A Surrender Of All Supernaturalism And Fixed Dogma And Rigid Institutionalism With Which Christianity Has Been Historically Associated

The Outstanding Problem Of The Public Is Discovery And Identification Of Itself

No Man's Credit Is As Good As His Money.

Knowledge Falters When Imagination Clips Its Wings Or Fears To Use Them.

Every Thinker Puts Some Portion Of An Apparently Stable World In Peril.

In England, Philosophers Are Honoured, Respected; They Rise To Public Offices, They Are Buried With The Kings... In France Warrants Are Issued Against Them, They Are Persecuted, Pelted With Pastoral Letters: Do We See That England Is Any The Worse For It?

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