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John Dewey

John Dewey Quotes

Philosopher

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Famous John Dewey Quotes

“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.”

ShouldMindMayChildrenProblemGrowingEconomicDevelopmentAdultsCuriosityOpennessDevotedManhoodSympatheticCopingEconomic ProblemsUnbiasedResponsiveness
Book:Democracy and Education: Top American Authors
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“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.”

WorldMayChildrenEndsYoungPurposeHumanityParentViewsGenerationsSubjectsInstrumentsRealizationEducatePromotion
Book:Democracy and Education: Top American Authors
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“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.”

PeopleThinkingMenChildrenMadeCountryStatesSchoolDifferencesChurchReligiousRaceAtheismHe ManConsciousAdultsConstitutionFoundationDemocraticPositive AtheismSensitiveBoardsDivisionEstablishmentIntroducingCreedsPublic SchoolIntroductionAmerican LifeAntagonismBoard Of EducationReligious Differences
Author:John Dewey
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“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.”

ChildrenLittlesIdeasYoungSocialGroupsTeachingSpecialYouthEmotionalMaterialsDependsNeededTrainingAdultsConnectionsInstitutionsRelyDevicesCustomsAssociationLoyalSavagesFormalDispositionCeremonyEldersMembershipInitiationChildren LearningSocial Groups
Book:Democracy and Education - An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education
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“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.”

ChildrenArtImportantWould BeSocialAttentionSeeingTreeSharePositionForestsConfusionOutcomesDispositionSocial LifeScience ReligionClamor
Book:Democracy and Education - An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education
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“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.”

GivingLooksChildrenYoungParentNaturalObjectsCircumstancesThousandActivityMethodEndureDetailsInstancePermanentIntercourseGiving Directions
Book:Democracy and Education: Top American Authors
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“I believe that the school is primarily a social institution. Education being a social process, the school is simply that form of community life in which all those agencies are concentrated that will be most effective in bringing the child to share in the inherited resources of the race, and to use his own powers for social ends. I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living.”

BelieveChildrenEndsUseSchoolFormI BelieveSocialProcessCommunityRaceEducationShareResourcesInstitutionsEducationalPreparationAgencySocial Institutions
Book:Selected educational writings
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“I believe that the teacher's place and work in the school is to be interpreted from this same basis. The teacher is not in the school to impose certain ideas or to form certain habits in the child, but is there as a member of the community to select the influences which shall affect the child and to assist him in properly responding to these influences.”

BelieveChildrenIdeasSchoolFormCertainI BelieveCommunityTeacherInfluenceHabitMembersBasesEducationalSelectResponding
Book:The Essential Dewey: Pragmatism, education, democracy
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“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”

ChildrenLittlesSelfSchoolSpiritCommunityInstrumentsTrainWorthyLovelyIntroducingProvidingHarmoniousMembership
Book:The School and Society and The Child and the Curriculum
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