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Quote by William James

“The difference between an interesting and a tedious teacher consists in little more than the inventiveness by which the one is able to mediate these associations and connections, and in the dullness in discovering such transitions which the other shows.”

Quote by William James

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Author

William James
William James

William James, born on January 11, 1842, and died on August 26, 1910, was an influential American philosopher, psychologist, and writer. He is considered one of the founders of functionalism in psychology and has had a profound impact on the fields of psychology, philosophy, and religion. more

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“If, then, you wish to insure the interest of your pupils, there is only one way to do it; and that is to make certain that they have something in their minds to attend with, when you begin to talk. That something can consist in nothing but a previous lot of ideas already interesting in themselves, and of such a nature that the incoming novel objects which you present can dovetail into them and form with them some kind of a logically associated or systematic whole.”

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Book:Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals
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“All that we need explicitly to note is that, the more the passive attention is relied on, by keeping the material interesting; and the less the kind of attention requiring effort is appealed to; the more smoothly and pleasantly the classroom work goes on.”

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Book:Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals
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“But when all is said and done, the fact remains that some teachers have a naturally inspiring presence and can make their exercises interesting, whilst others simply cannot. And psychology and general pedagogy here confess their failure, and hand things over to the deeper spring of human personality to conduct the task.”

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Book:Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals
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“If the topic be highly abstract, show its nature by concrete examples. If it be unfamiliar, trace some point of analogy in it with the known. If it be inhuman, make it figure as part of a story. If it be difficult, couple its acquisition with some prospect of personal gain. Above all things, make sure that it shall run through certain inner changes, since no unvarying object can possibly hold the mental field for long.”

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Author:William James
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“An educated memory depends on an organized system of associations; and its goodness depends on two of their peculiarities: first, on the persistency of the associations; and, second, on their number.”

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Book:Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals
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“The art of remembering is the art of thinking. When we wish to fix a new thing in either our own mind or a pupil's, our conscious effort should not be so much to impress and retain it as to connect it with something else already there. The connecting is the thinking; and, if we attend clearly to the connection, the connected thing will certainly be likely to remain within recall.”

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Book:Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals
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“Be patient and sympathetic with the type of mind that cuts a poor figure in examinations. It may, in the long examination which life sets us, come out in the end in better shape than the glib and ready reproducer, its passions being deeper, its purposes more worthy, its combining power less commonplace, and its total mental output consequently more important.”

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Book:Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals
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