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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.

-John Dewey

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Historically The Great Movements

John Dewey

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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.

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Distribution Of Power

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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.

Always Make The Other Person Feel Important.

The Spontaneous Power Of The Child, His Demand For Self-expression, Can Not By Any Possibility Be Suppressed.

But The Individual Butterfly Or Earthquake Remains Just The Unique Existence Which It Is. We Forget In Explaining Its Occurrence That It Is Only The Occurrence That Is Explained, Not The Thing Itself.

Human Nature Exists And Operates In An Environment. And It Is Not 'in' That Environment As Coins Are In A Box, But As A Plant Is In The Sunlight And Soil.

To Feel The Meaning Of What One Is Doing, And To Rejoice In That Meaning; To Unite In One Concurrent Fact The Unfolding Of The Inner Life And The Ordered Development Of Material Conditions--that Is Art.

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.

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.

Education As Growth Or Maturity Should Be An Ever-present Process.

Independent Self-reliant People Would Be A Counterproductive Anachronism In The Collective Society Of The Future Where People Will Be Defined By Their Associations.

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

Education Is Life Itself.

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.

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

When "reality" Is Sought For At Large, It Is Without Intellectual Import; At Most The Term Carries The Connotation Of An Agreeableemotional State.

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.

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

As Formal Teaching And Training Grow In Extent, There Is The Danger Of Creating An Undesirable Split Between The Experience Gained In More Direct Associations And What Is Acquired In School. This Danger Was Never Greater Than At The Present Time, On Account Of The Rapid Growth In The Last Few Centuries Of Knowledge And Technical Modes Of Skill.

It Science Involves An Intelligent And Persistent Endeavor To Revise Current Beliefs So As To Weed Out What Is Erroneous, To Add To Their Accuracy, And, Above All, To Give Them Such Shape That The Dependencies Of The Various Facts Upon One Another May Be As Obvious As Possible.

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

It Requires Troublesome Work To Undertake The Alteration Of Old Beliefs.

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

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.

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

The Belief That All Genuine Education Comes About Through Experience Does Not Mean That All Experiences Are Genuinely Or Equally Educative.

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.

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.

Vocational Training Is The Training Of Animals Or Slaves. It Fits Them To Become Cogs In The Industrial Machine. Free Men Need Liberal Education To Prepare Them To Make A Good Use Of Their Freedom.

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.

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.

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

Every Society Gets Encumbered With What Is Trivial, With Dead Wood From The Past, And With What Is Positively Perverse.

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.

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

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

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.

Intelligent Thinking Means An Increment Of Freedom In Action-an Emancipation From Chance And Fatality. 'thought' Represents The Suggestion Of A Way Of Response That Is Different From That Which Would Have Been Followed If Intelligent Observation Had Not Effected An Inference As To The Future.

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.

Men Live In A Community In Virtue Of The Things Which They Have In Common; And Communication Is The Way In Which They Come To Possess Things In Common. What They Must Have In Common In Order To Form A Community Or Society Are Aims, Beliefs, Aspirations, Knowledge - A Common Understanding - Likemindedness As The Sociologists Say.

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

Since A Democratic Society Repudiates The Principle Of External Authority, It Must Find A Substitute In Voluntary Disposition And Interest; These Can Be Created Only By Education.

Faith In The Possibilities Of Continued And Rigorous Inquiry Does Not Limit Access To Truth To Any Channel Or Scheme Of Things. It Does Not First Say That Truth Is Universal And Then Add There Is But One Road To It.

I Know That There Are Many Persons To Whom It Seems Derogatory To Link A Body Of Philosophic Ideas To The Social Life And Cultureof Their Epoch. They Seem To Accept A Dogma Of Immaculate Conception Of Philosophical Systems.

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

Without Initiation Into The Scientific Spirit One Is Not In Possession Of The Best Tools Which Humanity Has So Far Devised For Effectively Directed Reflection. One In That Case Not Merely Conducts Inquiry And Learning Without The Use Of The Best Instruments, But Fails To Understand The Full Meaning Of Knowledge.

All Education Which Develops Power To Share Effectively In Social Life Is Moral.

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.

Mankind Likes To Think In Terms Of Extreme Opposites. It Is Given To Formulating Its Beliefs In Terms Of Either/ors, Between Which It Recognizes No Intermediate Possibilities.

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

Learning From Mistakes

Learning Experience

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

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 Experience Has To Be Formulated In Order To Be Communicated.

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

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.

Communication Is A Process Of Sharing Experience Till It Becomes A Common Possession. It Modifies The Disposition Of Both The Parties Who Partake In It.

Art Is The Most Effective Mode Of Communications That Exists.

Various Epochs Of The Past Have Had Their Own Characteristic Struggles And Interests. Each Of These Great Epochs Has Left Behind Itself A Kind Of Cultural Deposit, Like A Geologic Stratum. These Deposits Have Found Their Way Into Educational Institutions In The Form Of Studies, Distinct Courses Of Study, Distinct Types Of Schools.

Like The Soil, Mind Is Fertilized While It Lies Fallow, Until A New Burst Of Bloom Ensues.

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.

Hunger Not To Have, But To Be

Education Is Not An Affair Of 'telling' And Being Told, But An Active And Constructive Process.

Within Even The Most Social Group There Are Many Relations That Are Not As Yet Social.

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.

When Men Think And Believe In One Set Of Symbols And Act In Ways Which Are Contrary To Their Professed And Conscious Ideas, Confusion And Insincerity Are Bound To Result.

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

The School Has The Function Of Coordinating Within The Disposition Of Each Individual The Diverse Influences Of The Various Social Environments Into Which He Enters.

I Should Venture To Assert That The Most Pervasive Fallacy Of Philosophic Thinking Goes Back To Neglect Of Context.

Man's Home Is Nature; His Purposes And Aims Are Dependent For Execution Upon Natural Conditions. Separated From Such Conditions They Become Empty Dreams And Idle Indulgences Of Fancy.

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

Imposing An Alleged Uniform General Method Upon Everybody Breeds Mediocrity In All But The Very Exceptional. And Measuring Originality By Deviation From The Mass Breeds Eccentricity In Them.

Education Proceeds Ultimately From The Patterns Furnished By Institutions, Customs, And Laws- If The Patterns Of Institutions, Customs, And Laws Are Broken For This Philosophy Education Should Fix Itself. There Should Be Several Different Things Taught Instead Of One "supreme Factor".

The Future Of Our Civilisation Depends Upon The Widening Spread And Deepening Hold Of The Scientific Habit Of Mind.

To Be Born, To Live And To Die Is Merely To Change Forms... And What Does One Form Matter Any More Than Another?... Each Form Has Its Own Sort Of Happiness And Unhappiness. From The Elephant Down To The Flea... From The Flea Down To The Sensitive And Living Molecule Which Is The Origin Of All, There Is Not A Speck In The Whole Of Nature That Does Not Feel Pain Or Pleasure.

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.

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.

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

The Premium So Often Put In Schools Upon External "discipline," And Upon Marks And Rewards, Upon Promotion And Keeping Back, Are The Obverse Of The Lack Of Attention Given To Life Situations In Which The Meaning Of Facts, Ideas, Principles, And Problems Is Vitally Brought Home.

While Every Social Arrangement Is Educative In Effect, The Educative Effect First Becomes An Important Part Of The Purpose Of The Association In Connection With The Association Of The Older With The Younger.

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.

A Person Who Is Trained To Consider His Actions, To Undertake Them Deliberately, Is In So Far Forth Disciplined. Add To This Ability A Power To Endure In An Intelligently Chosen Course In The Face Of Distraction, Confusion, And Difficulty, And You Have The Essence Of Discipline.

Thought Is Impossible Without Words.

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

You Cannot Teach Today The Same Way You Did Yesterday To Prepare Students For Tomorrow.

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

The Devotion Of Democracy To Education Is A Familiar Fact. . . . [a] Government Resting Upon Popular Suffrage Cannot Be Successful Unless Those Who Elect . . . Their Governors Are Educated.

As A Child Lives Today, He Will Live Tomorrow.

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

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.

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.

Cease Conceiving Of Education As Mere Preparation For Later Life, And Make It The Full Meaning Of The Present Life.

Where There Is Giving There Must Be Taking.

The Problem Of Education In A Democratic Society Is To Do Away With ... Dualism And To Construct A Course Of Studies Which Makes Thought A Guide Of Free Practice For All And Which Makes Leisure A Reward Of Accepting Responsibility For Service, Rather Than A State Of Exemption From It.

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.

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

It Is The Office Of The School Environment To Balance The Various Elements In The Social Environment, And To See To It That Each Individual Gets An Opportunity To Escape From The Limitations Of The Social Group In Which He Was Born, And To Come Into Living Contact With A Broader Environment.

In Brief, The Function Of Knowledge Is To Make One Experience Freely Available To Other Experiences.

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.

There Is No Such Thing As Educational Value In The Abstract. The Notion That Some Subjects And Methods And That Acquaintance With Certain Facts And Truths Possess Educational Value In And Of Themselves Is The Reason Why Traditional Education Reduced The Material Of Education So Largely To A Diet Of Predigested Materials.

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

I Believe That The Community's Duty To Education Is, Therefore, Its Paramount Moral Duty. By Law And Punishment, By Social Agitation And Discussion, Society Can Regulate And Form Itself In A More Or Less Haphazard And Chance Way. But Through Education Society Can Formulate Its Own Purposes, Can Organize Its Own Means And Resources, And Thus Shape Itself With Definiteness And Economy In The Direction In Which It Wishes To Move.

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.

Most Notable Distinction Between Living And Inanimate Beings Is That The Former Maintain Themselves By Renewal.

An Education Could Be Given Which Would Sift Individuals, Discovering What They Were Good For, And Supplying A Method Of Assigning Each To The Work In Life For Which His Nature Fits Him.

Continuity Of Life Means Continual Readaptation Of The Environment To The Needs Of Living Organisms.

Continuity Of Life

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.

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.

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.

Insight Into Soul-action, Ability To Discriminate The Genuine From The Sham And Capacity To Further One And Discourage The Other.

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

The Words "environment," "medium" Denote Something More Than Surroundings Which Encompass An Individual. They Denote The Specific Continuity Of The Surroundings With His Own Active Tendencies.

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.

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.

Society Not Only Continues To Exist By Transmission, By Communication, But It May Fairly Be Said To Exist In Transmission, In Communication.

One Code Prevails In The Family; Another, On The Street; A Third, In The Workshop Or Store; A Fourth, In The Religious Association. As A Person Passes From One Of The Environments To Another, He Is Subjected To Antagonistic Pulls, And Is In Danger Of Being Split Into A Being Having Different Standards Of Judgment And Emotion For Different Occasions. This Danger Imposes Upon The School A Steadying And Integrating Office.

Every Great Advance In Science Has Issued From A New Audacity Of Imagination. What Are Now Working Conceptions, Employed As A Matter Of Course Because They Have Withstood The Tests Of Experiment And Have Emerged Triumphant, Were Once Speculative Hypotheses.

The Good Society Was, Like The Good Self, A Diverse Yet Harmonious, Growing Yet Unified Whole, A Fully Participatory Democracy In Which The Powers And Capacities Of The Individuals That Comprised It Were Harmonized By Their Cooperative Activities Into A Community That Permitted The Full And Free Expression Of Individuality.

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 Result Of The Educative Process Is Capacity For Further Education.

The Moment Philosophy Supposes It Can Find A Final And Comprehensive Solution, It Ceases To Be Inquiry And Becomes Either Apologetics Or Propaganda.

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.

We Cannot Set Up, Out Of Our Heads, Something We Regard As An Ideal Society.

Collateral Learning In The Way Of Formation Of Enduring Attitudes, Of Likes And Dislikes, May Be And Often Is Much More Important Than The Spelling Lesson Or Lesson In Geography Or History That Is Learned.

Likes And Dislikes

Beings Who Are Born Not Only Unaware Of, But Quite Indifferent To, The Aims And Habits Of The Social Group Have To Be Rendered Cognizant Of Them And Actively Interested. Education, And Education Alone, Spans The Gap.

The Primary Ineluctable Facts Of The Birth And Death Of Each One Of The Constituent Members In A Social Group Determine The Necessity Of Education.

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 Depends On The Quality Of The Experience Which Is Had.

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.

The Problem Is To Extract The Desirable Traits Of Forms Of Community Life Which Actually Exist, And Employ Them To Criticize Undesirable Features And Suggest Improvement

To Me Faith Means Not Worrying.

Any Genuine Teaching Will Result, If Successful, In Someone's Knowing How To Bring About A Better Condition Of Things Than Existed Earlier.

The Breakdown Of Plato's Philosophy Is Made Apparent In The Fact That He Could Not Trust To Gradual Improvements In Education To Bring About A Better Society Which Should Then Improve Education, And So On Indefinitely. Correct Education Could Not Come Into Existence Until An Ideal State Existed, And After That Education Would Be Devoted Simply To Its Conservation. For The Existence Of This State He Was Obliged To Trust To Some Happy Accident By Which Philosophic Wisdom Should Happen To Coincide With Possession Of Ruling Power In The State.

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.

What's In A Question, You Ask? Everything. It Is Evoking Stimulating Response Or Stultifying Inquiry. It Is, In Essence, The Very Core Of Teaching.

I Believe That The Teacher's Place And Work In The School Is To Be Interpreted From This Same Basis. The Teacher Is Not In The School To Impose Certain Ideas Or To Form Certain Habits In The Child, But Is There As A Member Of The Community To Select The Influences Which Shall Affect The Child And To Assist Him In Properly Responding To These Influences.

What, After All, Is The Public Under Present Conditions? What Are The Reasons For Its Eclipse? What Hinders It From Finding And Identifying Itself? By What Means Shall Its Inchoate And Amorphous Estate Be Organized Into Effective Political Action Relevant To Present Social Needs And Opportunities? What Has Happened To The Public In The Century And A Half Since The Theory Of Political Democracy Was Urged With Such Assurance And Hope?

Intelligence Is In Constant Process Of Forming, And Its Retention Requires Constant Alertness In Observing Consequences, An Open-minded Will To Learn, And Courage In Readjustment.

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.

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

Not Only Is Social Life Identical With Communication, But All Communication (and Hence All Genuine Social Life) Is Educative.

A Problem Well Put Is Half Solved.

Since Changes Are Going On Anyway, The Great Thing Is To Learn Enough About Them So That We Will Be Able To Lay Hold Of Them And Turn Them In The Direction Of Our Desires. Conditions And Events Are Neither To Be Fled From Nor Passively Acquiesced In; They Are To Be Utilized And Directed.

All Genuine Education Comes About Through Experience.

A Society With Too Few Independent Thinkers Is Vulnerable To Control By Disturbed And Opportunistic Leaders. A Society Which Wants To Create And Maintain A Free And Democratic Social System Must Create Responsible Independence Of Thought Among Its Young.

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

As We Have Seen There Is Some Kind Of Continuity In Any Case Since Every Experience Affects For Better Or Worse The Attitudes Which Help Decide The Quality Of Further Experiences, By Setting Up Certain Preference And Aversion, And Making It Easier Or Harder To Act For This Or That End.

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 Religious Is Any Activity Pursued In Behalf Of An Ideal End Against Obstacles And In Spite Of Threats Of Personal Loss Because Of Its General And Enduring Value.

A Being Connected With Other Beings Cannot Perform His Own Activities Without Taking The Activities Of Others Into Account. For They Are The Indispensable Conditions Of The Realization Of His Tendencies. When He Moves He Stirs Them And Reciprocally.

Plato Defined A Slave As One Who Accepts From Another The Purposes Which Control His Conduct. This Condition Obtains Even Where There Is No Slavery In The Legal Sense. It Is Found Wherever Men Are Engaged In Activity Which Is Socially Serviceable, But Whose Service They Do Not Understand And Have No Personal Interest In.

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

Democracies Have

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.

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.

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.

I Believe That In The Ideal School We Have The Reconciliation Of The Individualistic And The Institutional Ideals.

Individualistic

Arriving At One Goal Is The Starting Point To Another.

It Is Not A Nature Cure, A System Of Faith Healing, Or A Physical Culture, Or A Medical Treatment, Or A Semi-occult Philosophy. As To What It Is, Dewey's Brief But Striking Description Appeals Most And Has The Least Chance Of Being Proved Incorrect: 'it The Alexander Technique Bears The Same Relation To Education That Education Itself Bears To All Other Human Activities.'

The First Office Of The Social Organ We Call The School Is To Provide A Simplified Environment. It Selects The Features Which Are Fairly Fundamental And Capable Of Being Responded To By The Young. Then It Establishes A Progressive Order, Using The Factors First Acquired As Means Of Gaining Insight Into What Is More Complicated.

Change As Change Is Mere Flux And Lapse; It Insults Intelligence. Genuinely To Know Is To Grasp A Permanent End That Realizes Itself Through Changes.

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

There Is, I Think, No Point In The Philosophy Of Progressive Education Which Is Sounder Than Its Emphasis Upon The Importance Of The Participation Of The Learner In The Formation Of The Purposes Which Direct His [sic] Activities In The Learning Process, Just As There Is No Defect In Traditional Education Greater Than Its Failure To Secure The Active Cooperation Of The Pupil In Construction Of The Purposes Involved In His Studying.

I Do Not Think That Any Thorough-going Modification Of College Curriculum Would Be Possible Without A Modification Of The Methods Of Instruction.

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.

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.

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

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.

Mind Is A Verb Not A Noun.

Some Experiences Are Mis-educative. Any Experience Is Mis-educative That Has The Effect Of Arresting Or Distorting The Growth Of Further Experience.

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 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.

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

Science Is A Systematic Means Of Gaining Reliable Knowledge.

The First Step In Freeing Men From External Chains Was To Emancipate Them From The Internal Chains Of False Beliefs And Ideals.

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.

For One Man Who Thanks God That He Is Not As Other Men There Are A Thousand To Offer Thanks That They Are As Other Men, Sufficiently As Others Are To Escape Attention.

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.

The Devotion Of Democracy To Education Is A Familiar Fact. The Superficial Explanation Is That A Government Resting Upon Popular Suffrage Cannot Be Successful Unless Those Who Elect And Who Obey Their Governors Are Educated. Since A Democratic Society Repudiates The Principle Of External Authority, It Must Find A Substitute In Voluntary Disposition And Interest; These Can Be Created Only By Education.

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.

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

The Path Of Least Resistance And Least Trouble Is A Mental Rut Already Made. It Requires Troublesome Work To Undertake The Alternation Of Old Beliefs. Self-conceit Often Regards It As A Sign Of Weakness To Admit That A Belief To Which We Have Once Committed Ourselves Is Wrong. We Get So Identified With An Idea That It Is Literally A Pet Notion And We Rise To Its Defense And Stop Our Eyes And Ears To Anything Different.

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.

Confidence Is Directness And Courage In Meeting The Facts Of Life.

There Is No Greater Egoism Than That Of Learning When It Is Treated Simply As A Mark Of Personal Distinction To Be Held And Cherished For Its Own Sake. ... [k]knowledge Is A Possession Held In Trust For The Furthering Of The Well-being Of All

It May Be Said That An Education Which Does Not Succeed In Making Poetry A Resource In The Business Of Life As Well As In Its Leisure, Has Something The Matter With It.

Experience, In Short, Is Not A Combination Of Mind And World, Subject And Object, Method And Subject Matter, But Is A Single Continuous Interaction Of A Great Diversity (literally Countless In Number) Of Energies.

I Believe That In This Way The Teacher Always Is The Prophet Of The True God And The Usherer In Of The True Kingdom Of God.

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.

In General It May Be Said That The Things Which We Take For Granted Without Inquiry Or Reflection Are Just The Things Which Determine Our Conscious Thinking And Decide Our Conclusions. And These Habitudes Which Lie Below The Level Of Reflection Are Just Those Which Have Been Formed In The Constant Give And Take Of Relationship With Others.

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.

I Believe That Education Is The Fundamental Method Of Social Progress And Reform.

We Cannot Think Of Ourselves Save As To Some Extent Social Being. Hence, We Cannot Separate The Idea Of Ourselves And Our Own Good From Our Idea Of Others And Their Good.

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

No Thought, No Idea, Can Possibly Be Conveyed As An Idea From One Person To Another. When It Is Told It Is To The One To Whom It Is Told Another Fact, Not An Idea. The Communication May Stimulate The Other Person To Realize The Question For Himself And To Think Out A Like Idea, Or It May Smother His Intellectual Interest And Suppress His Dawning Effort At Thought. But What He Directly Gets Cannot Be An Idea. Only By Wrestling With The Conditions Of The Problem At First Hand, Seeking And Finding His Own Way Out, Does He Think.

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

Choice Is The Declaration By Self That A Certain Ideal Of Self Shall Be Realized.

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.

The Self Is Not Something Ready-made, But Something In Continuous Formation Through Choice Of Action.

There Is Not, In Fact, Any Such Thing As The Direct Influence Of One Human Being On Another Apart From Use Of The Physical Environment As An Intermediary. A Smile, A Frown, A Rebuke, A Word Of Warning Or Encouragement, All Involve Some Physical Change. Otherwise, The Attitude Of One Would Not Get Over To Alter The Attitude Of Another.

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.

Since In Reality There Is Nothing To Which Growth Is Relative Save More Growth, There Is Nothing To Which Education Is Subordinate Save More Education.‎

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

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Michelle Malkin

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