I'd rather break stones on the king's highway than hem a handkerchief.
No matter how mistaken Communist ideas may be, the experience and knowledge gained by trying them out have given a tremendous impetus to thought and imagination.
Yes, I am proud, and very humble too.
We have no firm hold on any knowledge or philosophy that can lift us out of our difficulties.
Language grows out of life, out of its needs and experiences. 828
The wrong things are predominantly stressed in the schools - things remote from the student's experience and need.
I cannot explain it; but when difficulties arise, I am not perplexed or doubtful. I know how to meet them.
I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built up on the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think.
It's a great mistake, I think, to put children off with falsehoods and nonsense, when their growing powers of observation and discrimination excite in them a desire to know about things.
It is a rare privilege to watch the birth, growth, and first feeble struggles of a living mind; this privilege is mine.
We are bothered a good deal by people who assume the responsibility of the world when God is neglectful.
We all like stories that make us cry. It's so nice to feel sad when you've nothing in particular to feel sad about.
We are afraid of ideas, of experimenting, of change. We shrink from thinking a problem through to a logical conclusion.
People seldom see the halting and painful steps by which the most insignificant success is achieved.
Is it not true, then, that my life with all its limitation touches at many points the life of the World Beautiful? Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be, therein to be content.
The Great War proved how confused the world is. Depression is proving it again.
I never taught language for the purpose of teaching it; but invariably used language as a medium for the communication of thought; thus the learning of language was coincident with the acquisition of knowledge.
We imagine that we want to escape our selfish and commonplace existence, but we cling desperately to our chains.
You can't touch love, but you can feel the sweetness that it pours into everything.
You cannot touch the clouds, you know; but you feel the rain and know how glad the flowers and the thirsty earth are to have it after a hot day. You cannot touch love either; but you feel the sweetness that it pours into everything. Without love you would not be happy or want to play.
Why, it is as easy to teach the name of an idea, if it is clearly formulated in the child's mind, as to teach the name of an object.
Too often, I think, children are required to write before they have anything to say. Teach them to think and read and talk without self-repression, and they will write because they cannot help it.
We all make mistakes, as the hedgehog said as he climbed off the scrubbing brush
Certain periods in history suddenly lift humanity to an observation point where a clear light falls upon a world previously dark.
The processes of teaching the child that everything cannot be as he wills it are apt to be painful both to him and to his teacher.
Language grows out of life, out of its needs and experiences...Language and knowledge are indissolubly connected; they are interdependent. Good work in language presupposes and depends on a real knowledge of things.
Obedience is the gateway through which knowledge, yes, and love, too, enter the mind of the child.
I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built upon the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think. Whereas if the child is left to himself, he will think more and better , if less "showily." Let him come and go freely, let him touch real things and combine his impressions for himself... Teaching fills the mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of before the child can develop independent ideas out of actual experiences.
I think that there are some teachers that do a very good job of incorporating culture and history. And there are some teachers who could use a little more help in that area.
The truth is not wonderful enough to suit the newspapers; so they enlarge upon it, and invent ridiculous embellishments.
If my parents didn't push me and didn't support education, I probably wouldn't be here today.... Regardless of whatever they went through and how they may have been treated, they felt education was important. So, it's easier when you have the parents who support it, rather than those who don't.
The immediate future is going to be tragic for all of us unless we find a way of making the vast educational resources of this country serve the true purpose of education, truth and justice.
Every renaissance comes to the world with a cry, the cry of the human spirit to be free.
Education in the light of present-day knowledge and need calls for some spirited and creative innovations both in the substance and the purpose of current pedagogy.
Our material eye cannot see that a stupid chauvinism is driving us from one noisy, destructive, futile agitation to another.
My heart is singing for joy this morning! A miracle has happened! The light of understanding has shone upon my little pupil's mind, and behold, all things are changed!
If the child is left to himself, he will think more and better, if less showily. Let him go and come freely, let him touch real things and combine his impressions for himself.
Children require guidance and sympathy far more than instruction.
A strenuous effort must be made to train young people to think for themselves and take independent charge of their lives.
