Background Image
...
One Might As Well Say He Has Sold When No One Has Bought As To Say He Has Taught When No One Has Learned.
-John Dewey
...
Please Wait....
Translating....

One Might As Well

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

Understanding the Quote: "one might as well say he has sold when no one has..."

This quote by John Dewey reflects deeply on the theme of teacher. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Teacher, Might, Taught, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how John Dewey interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About John Dewey

John Dewey is celebrated for insightful thoughts on teacher and might. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 5
Topic
Teacher
Might
Taught
More From John Dewey
Philosophy Recovers Itself When It Ceases To Be A Device For Dealing With The Problems Of Philosophers And Becomes A Method, Cultivated By Philosophers, For Dealing With The Problems Of Men.
Philosophy
Men
Philosopher
Adequate Control Means That The Successive Acts Are Brought Into A Continuous Order; Each Act Not Only Meets Its Immediate Stimulus But Helps The Acts Which Follow.
Mean
Order
Adequate
The Routine Of Custom Tends To Deaden Even Scientific Inquiry; It Stands In The Way Of Discovery And Of The Active Scientific Worker. For Discovery And Inquiry Are Synonymous As An Occupation. Science Is A Pursuit, Not A Coming Into Possession Of The Immutable; New Theories As Points Of View Are More Prized Than Discoveries That Quantitatively Increase The Store On Hand.
Thinking
Discovery
Views
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.
Attitude
Often Is
Likes And Dislikes
Our Historic Imagination Is At Best Slightly Developed. We Generalise And Idealise The Past Egregiously. We Set Up Little Toys To Stand As Symbols For Centuries And The Complicated Lives Of Countless Individuals.
Past
History
Imagination
Language Exists Only When It Is Listened To As Well As Spoken. The Hearer Is An Indispensable Partner.
Writing
Language
Partners
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.
School
Opportunity
Office
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.
Country
School
Ties
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.
Jobs
Character
Men
We Have Advanced Far Enough To Say That Democracy Is A Way Of Life. We Have Yet To Realize That It Is A Way Of Personal Life And One Which Provides A Moral Standard For Personal Conduct.
Democracy
Way
Moral
When Things Have A Meaning For Us, We Mean (intend, Propose) What We Do: When They Do Not, We Act Blindly, Unconsciously, Unintelligently.
Mean
Propose
How Can The Child Learn To Be A Free And Responsible Citizen When The Teacher Is Bound?
Teacher
Children
Citizens
Teachers Are The Agents Through Which Knowledge And Skills Are Communicated And Rules Of Conduct Enforced.
Teacher
Philosophy
Educational
As Long As Art Is The Beauty Parlor Of Civilization, Neither Art Nor Civilization Is Secure.
Art
Civilization
Long
We Cannot Set Up, Out Of Our Heads, Something We Regard As An Ideal Society.
Ideal Society
Regard
Ideals
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.
Attitude
Good Man
Training
Some Experiences Are Mis-educative. Any Experience Is Mis-educative That Has The Effect Of Arresting Or Distorting The Growth Of Further Experience.
Philosophy
Educational
Growth
Cease Conceiving Of Education As Mere Preparation For Later Life, And Make It The Full Meaning Of The Present Life.
Preparation
Mere
Present Life
Not Perfection As A Final Goal, But The Ever-enduring Process Of Perfecting, Maturing, Refining Is The Aim Of Living.
Goal
Perfection
Finals
By Object Is Meant Some Element In The Complex Whole That Is Defined In Abstraction From The Whole Of Which It Is A Distinction.
Elements
Distinction
Complexes
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.
Emotional
Intellectual
Attention
Democracy Has To Be Born Anew Every Generation, And Education Is Its Midwife.
Democracies Have
Democracy
Generations
Education Is Life Itself.
Education
Self Education
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.
Running
Intellectual
Purpose
In Laying Hands Upon The Sacred Ark Of Absolute Permanency, In Treating The Forms That Had Been Regarded As Types Of Fixity And Perfection As Originating And Passing Away, The Origin Of Species Introduced A Mode Of Thinking That In The End Was Bound To Transform The Logic Of Knowledge, And Hence The Treatment Of Morals, Politics, And Religion.
Religious
Thinking
Ideas
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.
Thinking
Discovery
Ideas
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.
Alertness
Open Minded
Process
With Respect To The Development Of Powers Devoted To Coping With Specific Scientific And Economic Problems We May Say That The Child Should Be Growing In Manhood. With Respect To Sympathetic Curiosity, Unbiased Responsiveness, And Openness Of Mind, We May Say That The Adult Should Be Growing In Childlikeness.
Children
Curiosity
Mind
Education Is A Regulation Of The Process Of Coming To Share In The Social Consciousness; And That The Adjustment Of Individual Activity On The Basis Of This Social Consciousness Is The Only Sure Method Of Social Reconstruction.
Regulation
Consciousness
Individual
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.
Success
Perseverance
Humility
Old Ideas Give Way Slowly; For They Are More Than Abstract Logical Forms And Categories. They Are Habits, Predispositions, Deeply Ingrained Attitudes Of Aversion And Preference.
Attitude
Acceptance
Ideas
Consensus Demands Communication.
Communication
Demand
Consensus
Since There Is No Single Set Of Abilities Running Throughout Human Nature, There Is No Single Curriculum Which All Should Undergo. Rather, The Schools Should Teach Everything That Anyone Is Interested In Learning.
Running
Learning
School
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.'
Philosophy
Healing
Technique
What Holds For Adults Holds Even More For Children, Sensitive And Conscious Of Differences. I Certainly Hope That The Board Of Education Will Think Very, Very Seriously Before It Introduces This Division And Antagonism In Our Public Schools.
Children
School
Thinking
The Moment Philosophy Supposes It Can Find A Final And Comprehensive Solution, It Ceases To Be Inquiry And Becomes Either Apologetics Or Propaganda.
Philosophy
Philosophical
Science
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.
Responsibility
Practice
Rewards
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.
Play
Differences
Imagination
Social Engaged Intellectuals Must Accept Reality As They Found It And Shape It Toward Positive Social Goals, Not Stand Aside In Self-righteous Isolation.
Reality
Self
Goal
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.
Believe
Humanity
Lessons
Every Serious-minded Person Knows That A Large Part Of The Effort Required In Moral Discipline Consists In The Courage Needed To Acknowledge The Unpleasant Consequences Of One's Past And Present Acts.
Past
Discipline
Effort
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.
Appreciation
Real
Artist
What The Best And Wisest Parent Wants For His Own Child, That Must The Community Want For All Of Its Children.
Education
Children
Community
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.
Children
Childhood
Community
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.
Prepared
Present Time
The Bad Man Is The Man Who No Matter How Good He Has Been Is Beginning To Deteriorate, To Grow Less Good. The Good Man Is The Man Who No Matter How Morally Unworthy He Has Been Is Moving To Become Better. Such A Conception Makes One Severe In Judging Himself And Humane In Judging Others.
Honesty
Integrity
Moving
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.
Attitude
Quality
Aversion
The Real Process Of Education Should Be The Process Of Learning To Think Through The Application Of Real Problems.
Real
Thinking
Problem
It Is A Familiar And Significant Saying That A Problem Well Put Is Half-solved.
Half
Problem
Significant
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.
Views
Ideas
Our Actions
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.
Teaching
School
Skills
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.
Lying
Reflection
Thinking
The Spontaneous Power Of The Child, His Demand For Self-expression, Can Not By Any Possibility Be Suppressed.
Children
Self
Expression
The Teacher Loses The Position Of External Boss Or Dictator But Takes On That Of Leader Of Group Activities
Teacher
Leader
Boss
Choice Is The Declaration By Self That A Certain Ideal Of Self Shall Be Realized.
Self
Choices
Certain
Anyone Who Has Begun To Think, Places Some Portion Of The World In Jeopardy.
Thinking
Progress
World
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.
Men
History
Intellectual
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.
Art
Development
Facts
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.
Conscious
Standards
Dues
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.
Teacher
Children
Educational
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.
Thinking
Feelings
Association
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.
Opportunity
Order
Numbers
I Believe That The Only True Education Comes Through The Stimulation Of The Child's Powers By The Demands Of The Social Situations In Which He Finds Himself.
Children
Believe
Demand
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.
Giving Up
Military
Struggle
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
Community
Improvement
Problem
The Method Of Democracy Is To Bring Conflicts Out Into The Open Where Their Special Claims Can Be Seen And Appraised, Where They Can Be Discussed And Judged.
Democracy
Special
Conflict
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.
Believe
Fate
Years
That The Great Majority Of Those Who Leave School Should Have Some Idea Of The Kind Of Evidence Required To Substantiate Given Types Of Belief Does Not Seem Unreasonable. Nor Is It Absurd To Expect That They Should Go Forth With A Lively Interest In The Ways In Which Knowledge Is Improved And A Marked Distaste For All Conclusions Reached In Disharmony With The Methods Of Scientific Inquiry.
School
Knowledge
Science
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.
Names
Matter
Void
That Which Distinguishes The Soviet System Both From Other National Systems And From The Progressive Schools Of Other Countries Is The Conscious Control Of Every Educational Procedure By Reference To A Single And Comprehensive Social Purpose.
Country
Educational
School
In Fact, The Human Young Are So Immature That If They Were Left To Themselves Without The Guidance And Succor Of Others, They Could Not Acquire The Rudimentary Abilities Necessary For Physical Existence.
Immature
Facts
Guidance
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.
Philosophy
Real
Men
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.
Equality
Economy
Term
The Empiric Easily Degenerates Into The Quack. He Does Not Know Where His Knowledge Begins Or Leaves Off, And So When He Gets Beyond Routine Conditions He Begins To Pretend-to Make Claims For Which There Is No Justification, And To Trust To Luck And To Ability To Impose Upon Others-to "bluff."
Luck
Degenerates
Doe
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.
Men
Religion
Thank God
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.
Influence
Environment
Surroundings
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
Goal
Democracy
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.
Religious
Loss
Religion
Every One Of The Constituent Elements Of A Social Group, In A Modern City As In A Savage Tribe, Is Born Immature, Helpless, Without Language, Beliefs, Ideas, Or Social Standards. Each Individual, Each Unit Who Is The Carrier Of The Life-experience Of His Group, In Time Passes Away. Yet The Life Of The Group Goes On.
Cities
Ideas
Immature
Doctrine That Eliminates Or Even Obscures The Function Of Choice Of Values And Enlistment Of Desires And Emotions In Behalf Of Those Chosen Weakens Personal Responsibility For Judgment And For Action. It Thus Helps Create The Attitudes That Welcome And Support The Totalitarian State.
Attitude
Freedom
Responsibility
All Of Us Have Many Habits Of Whose Import We Are Quite Unaware, Since They Were Formed Without Our Knowing What We Were About. Consequently They Possess Us, Rather Than We Them. They Move Us; They Control Us. Unless We Become Aware Of What They Accomplish, And Pass Judgment Upon The Worth Of The Result, We Do Not Control Them.
Moving
Knowing
Judgment
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.
Reading
Men
Air
Hunger Not To Have, But To Be
Hunger
Mind Is A Verb Not A Noun.
Mind
Verbs
Nouns
Mankind Likes To Think In Terms Of Extreme Opposites.
Philosophy
Educational
Thinking
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.
Educational
Struggle
School
Teaching May Be Compared To Selling Commodities. No One Can Sell Unless Somebody Buys.
Teaching
May
Commodity
Time And Memory Are True Artists; They Remould Reality Nearer To The Heart's Desire.
Inspirational
Time
Memories
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.
Past
Men
Littles
Continuity Of Life Means Continual Readaptation Of The Environment To The Needs Of Living Organisms.
Mean
Continuity Of Life
Needs
The Aim Of Education Is Growth: The Aim Of Growth Is More Growth
Education
Growth
Literacy
The First Step In Freeing Men From External Chains Was To Emancipate Them From The Internal Chains Of False Beliefs And Ideals.
Men
Mind
Care
Mere Physical Growing Up, Mere Mastery Of The Bare Necessities Of Subsistence Will Not Suffice To Reproduce The Life Of The Group. Deliberate Effort And The Taking Of Thoughtful Pains Are Required.
Growing Up
Pain
Thoughtful
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.
Education
Children
Believe
Modern Philosophy Certainly Exacts A Surrender Of All Supernaturalism And Fixed Dogma And Rigid Institutionalism With Which Christianity Has Been Historically Associated
Philosophy
Dogma
Surrender
Insight Into Soul-action, Ability To Discriminate The Genuine From The Sham And Capacity To Further One And Discourage The Other.
Educational
Soul
Action
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.
Acting
Way
Environment
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.
Communication
Men
Order
As A Child Lives Today, He Will Live Tomorrow.
Children
Learning
Live For Today
Selection Aims Not Only At Simplifying But At Weeding Out What Is Undesirable.
Weed
Aim
Undesirable
The Very Problem Of Mind And Body Suggests Division; I Do Not Know Of Anything So Disastrously Affected By The Habit Of Division As This Particular Theme. In Its Discussion Are Reflected The Splitting Off From Each Other Of Religion, Morals And Science; The Divorce Of Philosophy From Science And Of Both From The Arts Of Conduct. The Evils Which We Suffer In Education, In Religion, In The Materialism Of Business And The Aloofness Of "intellectuals" From Life, In The Whole Separation Of Knowledge And Practice -- All Testify To The Necessity Of Seeing Mind-body As An Integral Whole.
Art
Philosophy
Divorce
A Moral Principle Is Not A Command To Act Or To Forbear Acting In A Given Way: It Is A Tool For Analyzing A Special Situation, The Right Or Wrong Being Determined By The Situation In Its Entirety, Not By The Rule As Such.
Special
Acting
Principles
Popular Psychology Is A Mass Of Cant, Of Slush And Of Superstition Worthy Of The Most Flourishing Days Of The Medicine Man.
Men
Medicine
Psychology
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.
Communication
Democracy
Bars
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.
Teacher
Teaching
Practice
Only In Education, Never In The Life Of Farmer, Sailor, Merchant, Physician, Or Laboratory Experimenter, Does Knowledge Mean Primarily A Store Of Information Aloof From Doing.
Knowledge
Mean
Information
The Plea For The Predominance Of Learning To Read In Early School Life Because Of The Great Importance Attaching To Literature Seems To Be A Perversion.
School
Literature
Slave
The Development Occurs Through Reciprocal Give-and-take, The Teacher Taking But Not Being Afraid Also To Give.
Teacher
Teaching
Giving
Things Gain Meaning By Being Used In A Shared Experience Or Joint Action.
Gains
Joints
Action
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.
Party
Communication
Common
[t]he Schools, Through Reliance Upon The Spur Of Competition And The Bestowing Of Special Honors And Prizes, Only Build Up And Strengthen The Disposition That Makes An Individual When He Leaves School Employ His Special Talents And Superior Skill To Outwit His Fellow Without Respect For The Welfare Of Others
School
Skills
Competition
Schools Should Take Part In The Great Work Of Construction And Organization That Will Have To Be Done.
Education
School
Organization
In The Present State Of The World, It Is Evident That The Control We Have Gained Of Physical Energies, Heat, Light, Electricity, Etc., Without Having First Secured Control Of Our Use Of Ourselves Is A Perilous Affair. Without The Control Of Our Use Of Ourselves, Our Use Of Other Things Is Blind; It May Lead To Anything.
Light
Energy
Use
Art Is The Most Effective Mode Of Communications That Exists.
Art
Communication
Art Is
Many Of The Obstacles For Change Which Have Been Attributed To Human Nature Are In Fact Due To The Inertia Of Institutions And To The Voluntary Desire Of Powerful Classes To Maintain The Existing Status.
Powerful
Class
Desire
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.
Science
Giving
Curiosity
The Educative Value Of Manual Activities And Of Laboratory Exercises, As Well As Of Play, Depends Upon The Extent In Which They Aid In Bringing About A Sensing Of The Meaning Of What Is Going On. In Effect, If Not In Name, They Are Dramatizations.
Exercise
Play
Names
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.
Education
Teaching
Thinking
Nothing Takes Root In Mind When There Is No Balance Between Doing And Receiving.
Roots
Mind
Balance
If We Teach Today’s Students As We Taught Yesterday’s, We Rob Them Of Tomorrow.
Teacher
Powerful
Teaching
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.
Education
Successful
Government
All Communication Is Like Art. It May Fairly Be Said, Therefore, That Any Social Arrangement That Remains Vitally Social, Or Vitally Shared, Is Educative To Those Who Participate In It. Only When It Becomes Cast In A Mold And Runs In A Routine Way Does It Lose Its Educative Power.
Running
Art
Communication
If We Learn Not Humility, We Learn Nothing.
Humble
Humility
Ifs
What Nutrition And Reproduction Are To Physiological Life, Education Is To Social Life.
Nutrition
Social
Physiological
Man Lives In A World Of Surmise, Of Mystery, Of Uncertainties.
Men
World
Mystery
To Me Faith Means Not Worrying.
Faith
Spiritual
Mean
Of All Affairs, Communication Is The Most Wonderful.
Communication
Wonderful
Affair
One Can Think Effectively Only When One Is Willing To Endure Suspense And To Undergo The Trouble Of Searching.
Education
Teacher
Learning
Thinking Is The Accurate And Deliberate Instituting Of Connections Between What Is Done And Its Consequences.
Thinking
Connections
Done
By Various Agencies, Unintentional And Designed, A Society Transforms Uninitiated And Seemingly Alien Beings Into Robust Trustees Of Its Own Resources And Ideals. Education Is Thus A Fostering, A Nurturing, A Cultivating, Process.
Agency
Aliens
Robust
Language Fails Not Because Thought Fails, But Because No Verbal Symbols Can Do Justice To The Fullness And Richness Of Thought. Ifwe Are To Continue Talking About "data" In Any Other Sense Than As Reflective Distinctions, The Original Datum Is Always Such A Qualitative Whole.
Talking
Data
Justice
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.
Learning
School
Mean
Science Is A Systematic Means Of Gaining Reliable Knowledge.
Mean
Systematic
Experiences In Order To Be Educative Must Lead Out Into An Expanding World Of Subject Matter, A Subject Matter Of Facts Or Information And Of Ideas. This Condition Is Satisfied Only As The Educator Views Teaching And Learning As A Continuous Process Of Reconstruction Of Experience.
Education
Teaching
Views
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.
Needs
Influence
Threatening
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.
Children
Real
Believe
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?
Kings
Office
Letters
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.
Suffering
Connections
Enjoy
The Origin Of Thinking Is Some Perplexity, Confusion Or Doubt.
Education
Teacher
Thinking
To Find Out What One Is Fitted To Do, And To Secure An Opportunity To Do It, Is The Key To Happiness.
Happiness
Work
Opportunity
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.
Country
Communication
Mean
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.
Knowledge
Science
Reflection
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.
Mean
Differences
Design
If There Is One Conclusion To Which Human Experience Unmistakably Points It Is That Democratic Ends Demand Democratic Methods For Their Realization.
Realization
Demand
Ends
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.
Knowledge
Science
Knowing
To The Being Of Fully Alive, The Future Is Not Ominous But A Promise; It Surrounds The Present Like A Halo.
Future
Promise
Halos
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.
Plato
Mean
Taught Us
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.
Government
Organization
Democracy
Education, Therefore, Is A Process Of Living And Not A Preparation For Future Living.
Education
Future
Learning
Poetry Has Historically Been Allied With Religion And Morals; It Has Served The Purpose Of Penetrating The Mysterious Depths Of Things.
Depth
Purpose
Moral
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.
Views
Growing
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.
Encouragement
Attitude
Facts
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.
Mean
Intelligent
Thinking
What Accumulated Knowledge Exists In Low Grade Societies Is At Least Put Into Practice; It Is Transmuted Into Character; It Exists With The Depth Of Meaning That Attaches To Its Coming Within Urgent Daily Interests.
Character
Practice
Depth
The Best Preparation For The Future Is A Well-spent Today.
Preparation
Today
Wells
The Aim Of Education Is To Enable Individuals To Continue Their Education ... (and) The Object And Reward Of Learning Is Continued Capacity For Growth. Now This Idea Cannot Be Applied To All The Members Of A Society Except Where Intercourse Of Man With Man Is Mutual, And Except Where There Is Adequate Provision For The Reconstruction Of Social Habits And Institutions By Means Of Wide Stimulation Arising From Equitably Distributed Interests. And This Means A Democratic Society.
Change
Education
Mean
Every Subject At Some Phase Of Its Development Should Possess, What Is For The Individual Concerned With It, An Aesthetic Quality.
Quality
Development
Phases
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.
Thinking
Peculiar
Research
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.
Eye
Light
Function
It Requires Troublesome Work To Undertake The Alteration Of Old Beliefs.
Belief
Troublesome
Alterations
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.
Play
Atmosphere
Agents
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.
Lying
Science
Law
A Response Is Not Just A Re-action, A Protest, As It Were, Against Being Disturbed; It Is, As The Word Indicates, An Answer. It Meets The Stimulus, And Corresponds With It.
Answers
Action
Stimulus
Education, Therefore, Is A Process Of Living And Not A Preparation For Future Living. Without Some Goals And Some Efforts To Reach It, No Man Can Live. Education Is Not Preparation For Life; Education Is Life Itself.
Inspirational Life
Men
Goal
Purposeful Action Is Thus The Goal Of All That Is Truly Educative.
Goal
Psychology
Action
One Might As Well Say He Has Sold When No One Has Bought As To Say He Has Taught When No One Has Learned.
Teacher
Might
Taught
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.
Butterfly
Unique
Earthquakes
Where There Is Giving There Must Be Taking.
Giving
The Reactionaries Are In Possession Of Force, In Not Only The Army And Police, But In The Press And The Schools
School
Army
Media
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
Personality
Groups
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.
Wisdom
Thinking
Distribution Of Power
Nature As A Whole Is A Progressive Realization Of Purpose Strictly Comparable To The Realization Of Purpose In Any Single Plant Or Animal.
Nature
Animal
Purpose
Individuals Are Certainly Interested, At Times, In Having Their Own Way, And Their Own Way May Go Contrary To The Ways Of Others. But They Are Also Interested, And Chiefly Interested Upon The Whole, In Entering Into The Activities Of Others And Taking Part In Conjoint And Cooperative Doings. Otherwise, No Such Thing As A Community Would Be Possible.
Community
Entering
May
We Talk Much More About Individualism And Liberty Than Our Ancestors. But As So Often Happens, When Anything Becomes Conscious, The Consciousness Is Compensatory For Absence In Practice.
Practice
Liberty
Consciousness
Every Society Gets Encumbered With What Is Trivial, With Dead Wood From The Past, And With What Is Positively Perverse.
Past
Woods
Positively
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.
Wisdom
Liberty
Expansion
As Long As Politics Is The Shadow Cast On Society By Big Business, The Attenuation Of The Shadow Will Not Change The Substance.
Long
Shadow
Substance
We Have Lost Confidence In Reason Because We Have Learned That Man Is Chiefly A Creature Of Habit And Emotion.
Men
Emotion
Reason
Even In A Savage Tribe, The Achievements Of Adults Are Far Beyond What The Immature Members Would Be Capable Of If Left To Themselves. With The Growth Of Civilization, The Gap Between The Original Capacities Of The Immature And The Standards And Customs Of The Elders Increases.
Civilization
Achievement
Growth
The Deepest Urge In Human Nature Is The Desire To Feel Important.
Important
Desire
Human Nature
It May Be Seriously Questioned Whether The Philosophies... Which Isolate Mind And Set It Over Against The World Did Not Have Their Origin In The Fact That The Reflective Or Theoretical Class Of Men Elaborated A Large Stock Of Ideas Which Social Conditions Did Not Allow Them To Act Upon And Test. Consequently Men Were Thrown Back Into Their Own Thoughts As Ends In Themselves.
Philosophy
Men
Class
The Future Of Religion Is Connected With The Possibility Of Developing A Faith In The Possibilities Of Human Experience And Human Relationships That Will Create A Vital Sense Of The Solidarity Of Human Interests And Inspire Action To Make That Sense A Reality.
Reality
Inspire
Religion
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.
Moving
Realization
Tendencies
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
Sake
Distinction
Mark
Education, In Its Broadest Sense, Is The Means Of This Social Continuity Of Life.
Inspirational
Education
Mean
We Can Have Facts Without Thinking But We Cannot Have Thinking Without Facts.
Thinking
Facts
The Interaction Of Knowledge And Skills With Experience Is Key To Learning.
Keys
Skills
Interaction
Most Notable Distinction Between Living And Inanimate Beings Is That The Former Maintain Themselves By Renewal.
Notable
Renewal
Distinction
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.
Philosophy
Thinking
Purpose
While [plato] Affirmed With Emphasis That The Place Of The Individual In Society Should Not Be Determined By Birth Or Wealth Or Any Conventional Status, But By His Own Nature As Discovered In The Process Of Education, He Had No Perception Of The Uniqueness Of Individuals. For Him They Fall By Nature Into Classes, And Into A Very Small Number Of Classes At That.
Plato
Fall
Small Numbers
A Narrow And Moralistic View Of Morals Is Responsible For The Failure To Recognize That All The Aims And Values Which Are Desirable In Education Are Themselves Moral. Discipline, Natural Development, Culture, Social Efficiency, Are Moral Traits - Marks Of A Person Who Is A Worthy Member Of That Society Which It Is The Business Of Education To Further.
Views
Discipline
Development
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
Children
School
Self
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.
Educational
Believe
Moving
When "reality" Is Sought For At Large, It Is Without Intellectual Import; At Most The Term Carries The Connotation Of An Agreeableemotional State.
Reality
Intellectual
Connotation
Society Not Only Continues To Exist By Transmission, By Communication, But It May Fairly Be Said To Exist In Transmission, In Communication.
Communication
May
Said
Democracy Means The Belief That Humanistic Culture Should Prevail.
Mean
Democracy
Culture
In Brief, The Function Of Knowledge Is To Make One Experience Freely Available To Other Experiences.
Function
Available
Understanding One Another Means That Objects, Including Sounds, Have The Same Value For Both With Respect To Carrying On A Common Pursuit.
Mean
Understanding
Sound
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.
Mean
Ingredients
Study
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.
Quality
Groups
Needs
Trending Author
Henry Louis Gates
Freddie Highmore
Ruth Benedict
Ellen Page
Carl Rogers
Catie Curtis
Category
Information