Education Quotes by John Dewey

Education is life itself.

— John Dewey

Etymologically, the word education means just a process of leading or bringing up.

— John Dewey

All genuine education comes about through experience.

— John Dewey

If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.

— John Dewey

Education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living.

— John Dewey

Education as growth or maturity should be an ever-present process.

— John Dewey

Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.

— John Dewey

I believe that education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform.

— John Dewey

The educational process has no end beyond itself; it is its own end.

— John Dewey

The acquisition however perfectly of skills is not an end in itself. They are things to be put to use as a…

— John Dewey

To "learn from experience" is to make a backward and forward connection between what we do to things and what we enjoy…

— John Dewey

An education could be given which would sift individuals, discovering what they were good for, and supplying a method of assigning each…

— John Dewey

Since a democratic society repudiates the principle of external authority, it must find a substitute in voluntary disposition and interest; these can…

— John Dewey

Cease conceiving of education as mere preparation for later life, and make it the full meaning of the present life.

— John Dewey

How many students ... were rendered callous to ideas, and how many lost the impetus to learn because of the way in…

— John Dewey

The school has the function of coordinating within the disposition of each individual the diverse influences of the various social environments into…

— John Dewey

Every living being needs continually renewed, and education is simply the chief process by which renewal occurs.

— John Dewey

Communication of science as subject-matter has so far outrun in education the construction of a scientific habit of mind that to some…

— John Dewey

The problem of education in a democratic society is to do away with ... dualism and to construct a course of studies…

— John Dewey

It is the office of the school environment to balance the various elements in the social environment, and to see to it…

— John Dewey

“Traditional education tended to ignore the importance of personal impulse and desire as moving springs. But this is no reason why progressive…

— John Dewey

Beings who are born not only unaware of, but quite indifferent to, the aims and habits of the social group have to…

— John Dewey

The great waste comes from [the child's] inability to utilize the experience he gets outside of school in any complete and free…

— John Dewey

By various agencies, unintentional and designed, a society transforms uninitiated and seemingly alien beings into robust trustees of its own resources and…

— John Dewey

A good aim surveys the present state of experience of pupils, and forming a tentative plan of treatment, keeps the plan constantly…

— John Dewey

To oscillate between drill exercises that strive to attain efficiency in outward doing without the use of intelligence, and an accumulation of…

— John Dewey

“It is [the teacher's] business to be on the alert to see what attitudes and habitual tendencies are being created. In this…

— John Dewey

“Collateral learning in the way of formation of enduring attitudes, of likes and dislikes, may be and often is much more important…

— John Dewey

I believe that the school is primarily a social institution. Education being a social process, the school is simply that form of…

— John Dewey

“Preparation" is a treacherous idea. In a certain sense every experience should do something to prepare a person for later experiences of…

— John Dewey

The breakdown of Plato's philosophy is made apparent in the fact that he could not trust to gradual improvements in education to…

— John Dewey

In a world that has so largely engaged in a mad and often brutally harsh race for material gain by means of…

— John Dewey

The aim of education is to enable individuals to continue their education ... (and) the object and reward of learning is continued…

— John Dewey

Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.

— John Dewey

What nutrition and reproduction are to physiological life, education is to social life.

— John Dewey

The interaction of knowledge and skills with experience is key to learning.

— John Dewey

Education, in its broadest sense, is the means of this social continuity of life.

— John Dewey

Teaching may be compared to selling commodities. No one can sell unless somebody buys.

— John Dewey

All learning begins when our comfortable ideas turn out to be inadequate.

— John Dewey

The goal of education is to enable individuals to continue their education.

— John Dewey