John Dewey Quotes

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.

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. But 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.

a problem well put is half solved.

We only think when we are confronted with a problem.

To the being of fully alive the future is not ominous but a promise it surrounds the present like a halo.

Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another.

Scientific principles and laws do not lie on the surface of nature. They are hidden, and must be wrested from nature by an active and elaborate technique of inquiry.

A single course of studies for all progressive schools is out of the question it would mean abandoning the fundamental principle of connection with life-experiences.

Of all affairs, communication is the most wonderful.

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. Condi-tions and events are neither to be fled from nor passively acquiesced in they are to be utilized and directed.

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.