Background Image

...

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.

-John Dewey

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

When We Consider The

John Dewey

...

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.

Views: 591

Topic

More From John Dewey

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

By Object Is Meant Some Element In The Complex Whole That Is Defined In Abstraction From The Whole Of Which It Is A Distinction.

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.

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.

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.

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 End Justifies The Means Only When The Means Used Are Such As Actually Bring About The Desired And Desirable End.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

[t]he Schools, Through Reliance Upon The Spur Of Competition And The Bestowing Of Special Honors And Prizes, Only Build Up And Strengthen The Disposition That Makes An Individual When He Leaves School Employ His Special Talents And Superior Skill To Outwit His Fellow Without Respect For The Welfare Of Others

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

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

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.

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

Language Exists Only When It Is Listened To As Well As Spoken. The Hearer Is An Indispensable Partner.

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

Mankind Likes To Think In Terms Of Extreme Opposites.

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

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

Mind Is A Verb Not A Noun.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

The 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.

A Democracy Is More Than A Form Of Government; It Is Primarily A Mode Of Associated Living, Of Conjoint Communicated Experience.

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.

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

Not Only Does Social Life Demand Teaching And Learning For Its Own Permanence, But The Very Process Of Living Together Educates. It Enlarges And Enlightens Experience; It Stimulates And Enriches Imagination; It Creates Responsibility For Accuracy And Vividness Of Statement And Thought.

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

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

To The Being Of Fully Alive, The Future Is Not Ominous But A Promise; It Surrounds The Present Like A Halo.

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.

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.

The Best Preparation For The Future Is A Well-spent Today.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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.

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 Development Occurs Through Reciprocal Give-and-take, The Teacher Taking But Not Being Afraid Also To Give.

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

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.

The Educational Process Has No End Beyond Itself; It Is Its Own End.

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

There Is No Common Understanding, And No Community Life. But In A Shared Activity, Each Person Refers What He Is Doing To What The Other Is Doing And Vice-versa.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

To Be Interested Is To Be Absorbed In, Wrapped Up In, Carried Away By, Some Object. To Take An Interest Is To Be On The Alert, To Care About, To Be Attentive.

If We Learn Not Humility, We Learn Nothing.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

What The Best And Wisest Parent Wants For His Own Child, That Must The Community Want For All Of Its Children.

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.

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.

Democracy Means The Belief That Humanistic Culture Should Prevail.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

A Man Can Be Prevented From Breaking Into Other Persons' Houses By Shutting Him Up, But Shutting Him Up May Not Alter His Disposition To Commit Burglary.

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

Continuity Of Life

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Giving And Taking Of Orders Modifies Actions And Results, But Does Not Of Itself Effect A Sharing Of Purposes, A Communication Of Interests.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Good Intentions

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.'

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.

Hunger Not To Have, But To Be

...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 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.

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

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.

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.

Experience Alone Cannot Deliver To Us Necessary Truths; Truths Completely Demonstrated By Reason. Its Conclusions Are Particular, Not Universal.

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.

The Good Man Is The Man Who, No Matter How Morally Unworthy He Has Been, Is Moving To Become Better.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Thought Is Impossible Without Words.

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

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

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

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

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.

To Me Faith Means Not Worrying.

The Experience Has To Be Formulated In Order To Be Communicated.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

The Need For Growth - What We Might Call Immaturity - Is Not A Negative State Of Being.

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

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

A Problem Well Put Is Half Solved.

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

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.

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.

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

Every Subject At Some Phase Of Its Development Should Possess, What Is For The Individual Concerned With It, An Aesthetic Quality.

Every Teacher Should Realize The Dignity Of His Calling.

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

Democracies Have

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

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.

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.

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

Science Is A Systematic Means Of Gaining Reliable Knowledge.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

As Long As Art Is The Beauty Parlor Of Civilization, Neither Art Nor Civilization Is Secure.

It Is Merely A Linguistic Peculiarity, Not A Logical Fact, That We Say "that Is Red" Instead Of "that Reddens," Either In The Sense Of Growing, Becoming, Red, Or In The Sense Of Making Something Else Red.

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.

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

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 Result Of The Educative Process Is Capacity For Further Education.

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

Every Great Advance In Science Has Issued From A New Audacity Of Imagination.

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

Trending Author

Yves Saint Laurent

John Perry Barlow

Category