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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.
-John Dewey
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The First Office Of

John Dewey
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.
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School
Mean
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The End Justifies The Means Only When The Means Used Are Such As Actually Bring About The Desired And Desirable End.
Mean
Desire
Used
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.
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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.
Power
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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
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
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Development
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.
Art
Knowledge
Class
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.‎
Education
Science
Reality
Language Exists Only When It Is Listened To As Well As Spoken. The Hearer Is An Indispensable Partner.
Writing
Language
Partners
Men's Fundamental Attitudes Toward The World Are Fixed By The Scope And Qualities Of The Activities In Which They Partake.
Attitude
Men
Quality
...the Moment Of Passage From Disturbance Into Harmony Is That Of Intensest Life.
Music
Moments
Harmony
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
Politics Is The Shadow Cast On Society By Big Business.
Shadow
Bigs
Casts
There Is No Discipline In The World So Severe As The Discipline Of Experience Subjected To The Tests Of Intelligent Development And Direction.
Intelligent
Discipline
Development
While The Living Thing May Easily Be Crushed By Superior Force, It None The Less Tries To Turn The Energies Which Act Upon It Into Means Of Its Own Further Existence. If It Cannot Do So, It Does Not Just Split Into Smaller Pieces (at Least In The Higher Forms Of Life), But Loses Its Identity As A Living Thing.
Mean
Trying
Identity
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
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.
Children
School
Hands
In Brief, The Function Of Knowledge Is To Make One Experience Freely Available To Other Experiences.
Function
Available
To The Being Of Fully Alive, The Future Is Not Ominous But A Promise; It Surrounds The Present Like A Halo.
Future
Promise
Halos
The Educational Process Has No End Beyond Itself; It Is Its Own End.
Educational
Ends
Process
Such Words As "society" And "community" Are Likely To Be Misleading, For They Have A Tendency To Make Us Think There Is A Single Thing Corresponding To The Single Word.
Thinking
Community
Tendencies
Without The English, Reason And Philosophy Would Still Be In The Most Despicable Infancy In France.
Philosophy
Philosophical
Science
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
We Are A People Of Many Races, Many Faiths, Creeds, And Religions. I Do Not Think That The Men Who Made The Constitution Forbade The Establishment Of A State Church Because They Were Opposed To Religion. They Knew That The Introduction Of Religious Differences Into American Life Would Undermine The Democratic Foundations Of This Country. 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.
Country
Religious
Children
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.
Fit
Individual
Given
Cease Conceiving Of Education As Mere Preparation For Later Life, And Make It The Full Meaning Of The Present Life.
Preparation
Mere
Present Life
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.
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Mean
Order
Nature Is The Mother And The Habitat Of Man, Even If Sometimes A Stepmother And An Unfriendly Home.
Mother
Nature
Home
Modern Life Means Democracy, Democracy Means Freeing Intelligence For Independent Effectivenessthe Emancipation Of Mind As An Individual Organ To Do Its Own Work. We Naturally Associate Democracy, To Be Sure, With Freedom Of Action, But Freedom Of Action Without Freed Capacity Of Thought Behind It Is Only Chaos.
Mean
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Mind
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
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.
Attitude
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Making A Difference
Intellectually Religious Emotions Are Not Creative But Conservative. They Attach Themselves Readily To The Current View Of The World And Consecrate It.
Religious
Creativity
Emotional
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.
Memories
Reflection
Sheep
Mankind Likes To Think In Terms Of Extreme Opposites.
Philosophy
Educational
Thinking
Communication Of Science As Subject-matter Has So Far Outrun In Education The Construction Of A Scientific Habit Of Mind That To Some Extent The Natural Common Sense Of Mankind Has Been Interfered With To Its Detriment.
Education
Communication
Science
The Development Occurs Through Reciprocal Give-and-take, The Teacher Taking But Not Being Afraid Also To Give.
Teacher
Teaching
Giving
Time And Memory Are True Artists; They Remould Reality Nearer To The Heart's Desire.
Inspirational
Time
Memories
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.
Thinking
Principles
Needs
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
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.
Spring
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Class
Purposeful Action Is Thus The Goal Of All That Is Truly Educative.
Goal
Psychology
Action
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.
Pain
Animal
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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.
Quality
Way
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
The Only Thing That Is Unqualifiedly Given Is The Total Pervasive Quality; And The Objection To Calling It "given" Is That The Word Suggests Something To Which It Is Given, Mind Or Thought Or Consciousness Or Whatever, As Well Possibly As Something That Gives.
Giving
Mind
Quality
The Life Of The Ancient Greeks And Romans Has Profoundly Influenced Our Own, And Yet The Ways In Which They Affect Us Do Not Present Themselves On The Surface Of Our Ordinary Experiences.
Greek
Ordinary
Way
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
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.
Eye
Light
Influence
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.
Children
Views
Parent
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.
Progress
Important
Use
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
Every Society Gets Encumbered With What Is Trivial, With Dead Wood From The Past, And With What Is Positively Perverse.
Past
Woods
Positively
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
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
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The Conduct Of Schools, Based Upon A New Order Of Conception, Is So Much More Difficult Than Is The Management Of Schools Which Walk The Beaten Path.
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Order
Path
Cooperation Called Fraternity In The Classic French Formula Is As Much A Part Of The Democratic Ideal As Is Personal Initiative. That Cultural Conditions Were Allowed To Develop (markedly So In The Economic Phase) Which Subordinated Cooperativeness To Liberty And Equality Serves To Explain The Decline In The Two Latter.
Democratic Ideals
Two
Liberty
Education As Growth Or Maturity Should Be An Ever-present Process.
Maturity
Growth
Process
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.
Atheism
Slavery
Burden
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
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
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
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
To Savages It Would Seem Preposterous To Seek Out A Place Where Nothing But Learning Was Going On In Order That One Might Learn.
Order
Savages
Might
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
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.
Teaching
Essence
Inquiry
A Society Which Is Mobile, Which Is Full Of Channels For The Distribution Of A Change Occurring Anywhere, Must See To It That Its Members Are Educated To Personal Initiative And Adaptability.
Initiative
Members
Adaptability
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
School
Mean
Race
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.
Community
Groups
Village
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.
Communication
Wrestling
Thinking
It Is A Familiar And Significant Saying That A Problem Well Put Is Half-solved.
Half
Problem
Significant
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.
Dream
Nature
Home
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
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
As Societies Become More Complex In Structure And Resources, The Need Of Formal Or Intentional Teaching And Learning Increases.
Teaching
Needs
Structure
Every Living Being Needs Continually Renewed, And Education Is Simply The Chief Process By Which Renewal Occurs.
Needs
Renewal
Process
There Is Nothing Left Worth Preserving In The Notions Of Unseen Powers, Controlling Human Destiny, To Which Obedience And Worship Are Due.
Destiny
Atheism
Unseen
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
Knowledge Falters When Imagination Clips Its Wings Or Fears To Use Them.
Knowledge
Science
Wings
The Struggle For Democracy Has To Be Maintained On As Many Fronts As Culture Has Aspects: Political, Economic, International, Educational, Scientific And Artistic, Religious.
Religious
Educational
Struggle
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.
Emotional
Skills
Matter
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.
Mind
Kind
Social
An Empirical Philosophy Is In Any Case A Kind Of Intellectual Disrobing. We Cannot Permanently Divest Ourselves Of The Intellectual Habits We Take On And Wear When We Assimilate The Culture Of Our Own Time And Place. But Intelligent Furthering Of Culture Demands That We Take Some Of Them Off, That We Inspect Them Critically To See What They Are Made Of And What Wearing Them Does To Us. We Cannot Achieve Recovery Of Primitive Naïveté. But There Is Attainable A Cultivated Naïveté Of Eye, Ear And Thought.
Philosophy
Recovery
Eye
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
Too Rarely Is The Individual Teacher So Free From The Dictation Of Authoritative Supervisor, Textbook On Methods, Prescribed Course Of Study, Etc., That He Can Let His Mind Come To Close Quarters With The Pupil's Mind And The Subject Matter.
Teacher
Teaching
Mind
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 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.
Environment
Individual
Surroundings
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
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!
Animal
Achievement
Humanity
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.
Breakup
Littles
Bows
Like The Soil, Mind Is Fertilized While It Lies Fallow, Until A New Burst Of Bloom Ensues.
Lying
Mind
Soil
There Is No God And There Is No Soul. Hence, There Is No Need For The Props Of Traditional Religion. With Dogma And Creed Excluded, Then Immutable Truth Is Dead And Buried. There Is No Room For Fixed And Natural Law Or Permanent Moral Absolutes.
Education
Law
Soul
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.
School
Environment
Influence
Continuity Of Life Means Continual Readaptation Of The Environment To The Needs Of Living Organisms.
Mean
Continuity Of Life
Needs
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?
Ideas
Way
Students
The Belief That All Genuine Education Comes About Through Experience Does Not Mean That All Experiences Are Genuinely Or Equally Educative.
Mean
Doe
Belief
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
Of What Use, Educationally Speaking, Is It To Be Able To See The End In The Beginning?
Use
Able
Ends
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 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
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.
School
Agency
Accomplishment
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
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.
Children
Giving
Parent
Poetry Has Historically Been Allied With Religion And Morals; It Has Served The Purpose Of Penetrating The Mysterious Depths Of Things.
Depth
Purpose
Moral
All Genuine Learning Comes Through Experience.
Genuine
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.
Communication
Views
Community
The Result Of The Educative Process Is Capacity For Further Education.
Education
Social Justice
Process
Experience Alone Cannot Deliver To Us Necessary Truths; Truths Completely Demonstrated By Reason. Its Conclusions Are Particular, Not Universal.
Reason
Conclusion
Particular
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
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.
Teacher
Believe
Kingdoms
Religions Have Been Universal In The Sense That All The People We Know Anything About Have Had A Religion. But The Differences Among Them Are So Great And So Shocking That Any Common Element That Can Be Extracted Is Meaningless.... The Older Apologists For Christianity Seem To Have Been Better Advised Than Some Modern Ones In Condemning Every Religion But One As An Impostor, As At Bottom Some Kind Of Demon Worship Or At Any Rate A Superstitious Figment.
Differences
People
Atheism
All Genuine Education Comes About Through Experience.
Genuine
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.
Selfishness
Gains
Facts
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.
Light
Hands
Organization
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
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.
Change
Education
Memories
If All Meanings Could Be Adequately Expressed By Words, The Arts Of Painting And Music Would Not Exist.
Art
Painting
Gathering Data
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
An Idea Is A Method Of Evading, Circumventing Or Surmounting Through Reflection, Obstacles That Otherwise Would Have To Be Attacked By Brute Force.
Reflection
Ideas
Imagination
Mind Is A Verb Not A Noun.
Mind
Verbs
Nouns
If A Person Cannot Foresee The Consequences Of His Act, And Is Not Capable Of Understanding What He Is Told About Its Outcome By Those With More Experience, It Is Impossible For Him To Guide His Act Intelligently. In Such A State, Every Act Is Alike To Him.
Understanding
Outcomes
Impossible
Selection Aims Not Only At Simplifying But At Weeding Out What Is Undesirable.
Weed
Aim
Undesirable
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
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.
Skills
Acquisition
Use
Schools Have Ignored The Value Of Experience And Chosen To Teach By Pouring In.
School
Pouring
Ignored
All Learning Begins When Our Comfortable Ideas Turn Out To Be Inadequate.
Teaching
Learning
Ideas
Inside The Modern City, In Spite Of Its Nominal Political Unity, There Are Probably More Communities, More Differing Customs, Traditions, Aspirations, And Forms Of Government Or Control, Than Existed In An Entire Continent At An Earlier Epoch.
Cities
Government
Community
There Is More Than A Verbal Tie Between The Words Common, Community, And Communication.
Communication
Ties
Community
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.
Art
Judging
Perception
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
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
A Democracy Is More Than A Form Of Government; It Is Primarily A Mode Of Associated Living, Of Conjoint Communicated Experience.
Government
Democracy
Form
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.
Education
Successful
Government
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
Without Some Goals And Some Efforts To Reach It, No Man Can Live.
Love
Inspirational
Life
We Can Have Facts Without Thinking But We Cannot Have Thinking Without Facts.
Thinking
Facts
To Me Faith Means Not Worrying.
Faith
Spiritual
Mean
Confidence Is Directness And Courage In Meeting The Facts Of Life.
Life
Confidence
Facts
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 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
Nothing Takes Root In Mind When There Is No Balance Between Doing And Receiving.
Roots
Mind
Balance
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
In General, Every Stimulus Directs Activity. It Does Not Simply Excite It Or Stir It Up, But Directs It Toward An Object.
Doe
Stimulus
Objects
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.
Numbers
Diversity
Mind
Education Has No More Serious Responsibility Than The Making Of Adequate Provision For Enjoyment Of Recreative Leisure Not Only For The Sake Of Immediate Health, But For The Sake Of Its Lasting Effect Upon The Habits Of The Mind.
Responsibility
Mind
Adequate
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.
Giving
Mind
Different
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
Thinking Is The Accurate And Deliberate Instituting Of Connections Between What Is Done And Its Consequences.
Thinking
Connections
Done
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
Every Subject At Some Phase Of Its Development Should Possess, What Is For The Individual Concerned With It, An Aesthetic Quality.
Quality
Development
Phases
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.
Everyday
Records
Matter
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.
Path
Resistance
Ruts
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
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
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.
Wish
Adults
Influential
Teaching May Be Compared To Selling Commodities. No One Can Sell Unless Somebody Buys.
Teaching
May
Commodity
It Is Not Truly Realistic Or Scientific To Take Short Views, To Sacrifice The Future To Immediate Pressure, To Ignore Facts And Forces That Are Disagreeable And To Magnify The Enduring Quality Of Whatever Falls In With Immediate Desire. It Is False That The Evils Of The Situation Arise From Absence Of Ideals; They Spring From Wrong Ideals.
Spring
Fall
Sacrifice
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
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.
Ideas
Three
Lasts
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.
Teacher
Teaching
Good Day
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.
Science
Imagination
Audacity
The Importance Of Language In Gaining Knowledge Is Doubtless The Chief Cause Of The Common Notion That Knowledge May Be Passed Directly From One To Another. It Almost Seems As If All We Have To Do To Convey An Idea Into The Mind Of Another Is To Convey A Sound Into His Ear. Thus Imparting Knowledge Gets Assimilated To A Purely Physical Process.
Ideas
Mind
Sound
Teachers Are The Agents Through Which Knowledge And Skills Are Communicated And Rules Of Conduct Enforced.
Teacher
Philosophy
Educational
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
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?
Mean
Opportunity
Political
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.
Weed
Intelligent
Giving
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
The Good Man Is The Man Who, No Matter How Morally Unworthy He Has Been, Is Moving To Become Better.
Inspirational
Change
Integrity
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
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
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
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.
Sake
Rope
Done
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
Not Only Is Social Life Identical With Communication, But All Communication (and Hence All Genuine Social Life) Is Educative.
Communication
Life Is
Social
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.
Mean
Responsibility
Exercise
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.
Education
Truth
Thinking
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
Men Have Never Fully Used [their] Powers To Advance The Good In Life, Because They Have Waited Upon Some Power External To Themselves And To Nature To Do The Work They Are Responsible For Doing.
Atheist
Men
Thinking
Failure Is Instructive. The Person Who Really Thinks Learns Quite As Much From His Failures As From His Successes.
Inspirational
Motivational
Success
Where There Is Giving There Must Be Taking.
Giving
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
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.
Government
Leader
Enlightenment
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
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
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.
Education
Principles
Authority
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
I Believe That Education Is The Fundamental Method Of Social Progress And Reform.
Educational
Believe
Progress
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
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
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
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.
Believe
Men
Thinking
The Reactionaries Are In Possession Of Force, In Not Only The Army And Police, But In The Press And The Schools
School
Army
Media
Complete Adaptation To Environment Means Death. The Essential Point In All Response Is The Desire To Control Environment.
Death
Nature
Mean
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
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
Schools Should Take An Active Part In Directing Social Change, And Share In The Construction Of A New Social Order
Education
School
Order
The Best Preparation For The Future Is A Well-spent Today.
Preparation
Today
Wells
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.
Self
Expression
Community
Education Must Be Understood As Growth, Or The Facilitation Of Growth.
Growth
Understood
The Spontaneous Power Of The Child, His Demand For Self-expression, Can Not By Any Possibility Be Suppressed.
Children
Self
Expression
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
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
Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.


2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.


2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.


2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.


3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.


3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.


3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.



4. Proper Usage of Quotes


4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.


4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.


4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).


5. Common Mistakes to Avoid


5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.


5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.


5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.



6. Quotes in Different Contexts


6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.


6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.


6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.



7. Punctuation and Formatting


Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:


Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.


Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.


Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.



8. Ethical Considerations


Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes


Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.



Conclusion


Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.


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