Quote

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.

John Dewey

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John Dewey
Age: 92 †
Born: 1859
Born: October 20
Died: 1952
Died: June 1
Aesthetician
Pedagogue
Philosopher
Professor
Psychologist
Sociologist
Teacher
Trade Unionist
Burlington
Vermont
Dewey
However
Common
Use
Ends
Acquisition
Things
Shared
Life
Contribution
Perfectly
Skills

More quotes by John Dewey

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Every one of the constituent elements of a social group, in a modern city as in a savage tribe, is born immature, helpless, without language, beliefs, ideas, or social standards. Each individual, each unit who is the carrier of the life-experience of his group, in time passes away. Yet the life of the group goes on.
John Dewey
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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.
John Dewey
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The end justifies the means only when the means used are such as actually bring about the desired and desirable end.
John Dewey
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The empiric easily degenerates into the quack. He does not know where his knowledge begins or leaves off, and so when he gets beyond routine conditions he begins to pretend-to make claims for which there is no justification, and to trust to luck and to ability to impose upon others-to bluff.
John Dewey
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Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.
John Dewey
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Old ideas give way slowly for they are more than abstract logical forms and categories. They are habits, predispositions, deeply ingrained attitudes of aversion and preference.
John Dewey
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I should venture to assert that the most pervasive fallacy of philosophic thinking goes back to neglect of context.
John Dewey
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Education, in its broadest sense, is the means of this social continuity of life.
John Dewey
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The school has the function of coordinating within the disposition of each individual the diverse influences of the various social environments into which he enters.
John Dewey
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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.
John Dewey
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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.
John Dewey
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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.
John Dewey
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Anyone who has begun to think, places some portion of the world in jeopardy.
John Dewey
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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.
John Dewey
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Nature is the mother and the habitat of man, even if sometimes a stepmother and an unfriendly home.
John Dewey
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Even in a savage tribe, the achievements of adults are far beyond what the immature members would be capable of if left to themselves. With the growth of civilization, the gap between the original capacities of the immature and the standards and customs of the elders increases.
John Dewey
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The reactionaries are in possession of force, in not only the army and police, but in the press and the schools
John Dewey
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By 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
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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.
John Dewey
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Democracy is a form of government only because it is a form of moral and spiritual association.
John Dewey