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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.

-John Dewey

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The Routine Of Custom

John Dewey

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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.

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

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.

The Relationships Of Our Present Social Life Are So Numerous And So Interwoven That A Child Placed In The Most Favorable Position Could Not Readily Share In Many Of The Most Important Of Them. Not Sharing In Them, Their Meaning Would Not Be Communicated To Him, Would Not Become A Part Of His Own Mental Disposition. There Would Be No Seeing The Trees Because Of The Forest. Business, Politics, Art, Science, Religion, Would Make All At Once A Clamor For Attention; Confusion Would Be The Outcome.

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.

We Have Three Approaches At Our Disposal: The Observation Of Nature, Reflection, And Experimentation. Observation Serves To Assemble The Data, Reflection To Synthesise Them And Experimentation To Test The Results Of The Synthesis. The Observation Of Nature Must Be Assiduous, Just As Reflection Must Be Profound, And Experimentation Accurate. These Three Approaches Are Rarely Found Together, Which Explains Why Creative Geniuses Are So Rare.

...compartmentalization Of Occupations And Interests Bring About A Separation Of That Mode Of Activity Commonly Called 'practice' From Insight; Of Imagination From Executive 'doing.' Each Of These Activities Is Then Assigned Its Own Place In Which It Must Abide. Those Who Write The Anatomy Of Experience Then Suppose That These Divisions Inhere In The Very Constitution Of Human Nature.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

The Phrase "think For One's Self" Is A Pleonasm. Unless One Does It For One's Self, It Isn't Thinking.

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

We Only Think When We Are Confronted With Problems.

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

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.

Art Is The Most Effective Mode Of Communications That Exists.

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

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.

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.

The Aim Of Education Is Growth: The Aim Of Growth Is More Growth

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

The Only Freedom That Is Of Enduring Importance Is The Freedom Of Intelligence, That Is To Say, Freedom Of Observation And Of Judgment, Exercised In Behalf Of Purposes That Are Intrinsically Worth While. The Commonest Mistake Made About Freedom Is, I Think, To Identify It With Freedom Of Movement, Or, With The External Or Physical Side Of Activity.

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.

Balance Is Balancing.

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.

Education Is Life Itself.

All Genuine Learning Comes Through Experience.

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

Likes And Dislikes

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

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

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.

That The Ulterior Significance Of Every Mode Of Human Association Lies In The Contribution Which It Makes To The Improvement Of The Quality Of Experience Is A Fact Most Easily Recognized In Dealing With The Immature.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Everything Depends On The Quality Of The Experience Which Is Had.

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

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.

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

Perhaps The Greatest Of All Pedagogical Fallacies Is The Notion That A Person Learns Only The Particular Thing He Is Studying At The Time.

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

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.

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.

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.

Arriving At One Goal Is The Starting Point To Another.

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.

The Need For Growth, For Development, For Change, Is Fundamental To Life.

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.

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

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

Making A Difference

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

The 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Instruction Is Important.

It Is Difficult To Connect General Principles With Such Thoroughly Concrete Things As Children.

Failure Is Instructive. The Person Who Really Thinks Learns Quite As Much From His Failures As From His Successes.

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.

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.

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

All Direction Is But Re-direction; It Shifts The Activities Already Going On Into Another Channel. Unless One Is Cognizant Of The Energies Which Are Already In Operation, One's Attempts At Direction Will Almost Surely Go Amiss.

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.

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.

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.

What Nutrition And Reproduction Are To Physiological Life, Education Is To Social Life.

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

If The Eye Is Constantly Greeted By Harmonious Objects, Having Elegance Of Form And Color, A Standard Of Taste Naturally Grows Up.

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

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.

To Be A Recipient Of A Communication Is To Have An Enlarged And Changed Experience. One Shares In What Another Has Thought And Felt And In So Far, Meagerly Or Amply, Has His Own Attitude Modified.

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.

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.

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.

A Book Or A Letter May Institute A More Intimate Association Between Human Beings Separated Thousands Of Miles From Each Other Than Exists Between Dwellers Under The Same Roof.

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.

All Genuine Education Comes About Through Experience.

A Child Might Be Made To Bow Every Time He Met A Certain Person By Pressure On His Neck Muscles, And Bowing Would Finally Become Automatic. It Would Not, However, Be An Act Of Recognition Or Deference On His Part, Till He Did It With A Certain End In View - As Having A Certain Meaning.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A Problem Well Put Is Half Solved.

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

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.

It Is A Familiar And Significant Saying That A Problem Well Put Is Half-solved.

Art Is Not The Possession Of The Few Who Are Recognized Writers, Painters, Musicians; It Is The Authentic Expression Of Any And All Individuality.

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

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

An Idea Is A Method Of Evading, Circumventing Or Surmounting Through Reflection, Obstacles That Otherwise Would Have To Be Attacked By Brute Force.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Continuity Of Life

Inference Is Always An Invasion Of The Unknown, A Leap From The Known.

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

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.

The Development Of Science Has Produced An Industrial Revolution Which Has Brought Different Peoples In Such Close Contact With One Another Through Colonization And Commerce That No Matter How Some Nations May Still Look Down Upon Others, No Country Can Harbor The Illusion That Its Career Is Decided Wholly Within Itself.

Were All Instructors To Realize That The Quality Of Mental Process, Not The Production Of Correct Answers, Is The Measure Of Educative Growth Something Hardly Less Than A Revolution In Teaching Would Be Worked.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

There Is Nothing Left Worth Preserving In The Notions Of Unseen Powers, Controlling Human Destiny, To Which Obedience And Worship Are Due.

The Ideal May Seem Remote Of Execution, But The Democratic Ideal Of Education Is A Farcical Yet Tragic Delusion Except As The Ideal More And More Dominates Our Public System Of Education.

Democratic Ideals

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

Democracies Have

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

There Is No Discipline In The World So Severe As The Discipline Of Experience Subjected To The Tests Of Intelligent Development And Direction.

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Pope Benedict XVI

Walter Annenberg

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