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.
John DeweySociety not only continues to exist by transmission, by communication, but it may fairly be said to exist in transmission, in communication.
John DeweyIt 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.
John DeweyCreative thinking will improve as we relate the new fact to the old and all facts to each other.
John DeweyWhat's in a question, you ask? Everything. It is evoking stimulating response or stultifying inquiry. It is, in essence, the very core of teaching.
John DeweyWhen 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
John DeweyIt is obvious to any observer that in every western country the increase of importance of public schools has been at least coincident with the relaxation of older family ties.
John DeweyI believe that in the ideal school we have the reconciliation of the individualistic and the institutional ideals.
John DeweyIn 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
John DeweyNature is the mother and the habitat of man, even if sometimes a stepmother and an unfriendly home.
John DeweySuch 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.
John DeweyA being whose activities are associated with others has a social environment. What he does and what he can do depend upon the expectations, demands, approvals, and condemnations of others.
John DeweyTo 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.
John DeweyHow 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?
John DeweyFaith 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.
John DeweyThe 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.
John DeweyDemocracy 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.
John DeweyI 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.
John DeweyTo the being of fully alive, the future is not ominous but a promise; it surrounds the present like a halo.
John DeweyAny experience, however, trivial in its first appearance, is capable of assuming an indefinite richness of significance by extending its range of perceived connections.
John DeweyWe 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.
John DeweySince 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.
John DeweySchools should take part in the great work of construction and organization that will have to be done.
John DeweyCease conceiving of education as mere preparation for later life, and make it the full meaning of the present life.
John DeweyLanguage exists only when it is listened to as well as spoken. The hearer is an indispensable partner.
John DeweyThe 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.
John DeweyIt 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.
John DeweyThe real process of education should be the process of learning to think through the application of real problems.
John DeweyThere is nothing left worth preserving in the notions of unseen powers, controlling human destiny, to which obedience and worship are due.
John DeweyCommunication 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.
John DeweyTo 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.
John DeweyThe aim of education is to enable individuals to continue their education — or that the object and reward of learning is continued capacity for growth.
John DeweyWhen "reality" is sought for at large, it is without intellectual import; at most the term carries the connotation of an agreeableemotional state.
John DeweyThere 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.
John DeweyBy 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.
John Dewey