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Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? [DEWEY]No words are oftener on our lips than _thinking_ and _thought_. So profuse and varied, indeed, is our use of these words that it is not easy to define just what we mean by them. The aim of this chapter is to find a single consistent meaning. Assistance may be had by considering some t... |
Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? [DEWEY]I. In its loosest sense, thinking signifies everything that, as we say, is "in our heads" or that "goes through our minds." He who offers "a penny for your thoughts" does not expect to drive any great bargain. In calling the objects of his demand _thoughts_, he does not intend to ascr... |
Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? [DEWEY]In this sense, silly folk and dullards _think_. The story is told of a man in slight repute for intelligence, who, desiring to be chosen selectman in his New England town, addressed a knot of neighbors in this wise: "I hear you don't believe I know enough to hold office. I wish you to... |
Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? [DEWEY]II. Even when thinking is used in a broad sense, it is usually restricted to matters not directly perceived: to what we do not see, smell, hear, or touch. We ask the man telling a story if he saw a certain incident happen, and his reply may be, "No, I only thought of it." A note of in... |
Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? [DEWEY]III. In its next sense, thought denotes belief resting upon some basis, that is, real or supposed knowledge going beyond what is directly present. It is marked by _acceptance or rejection of something as reasonably probable or improbable_. This phase of thought, however, includes two ... |
Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? [DEWEY]When we say, "Men used to think the world was flat," or, "I thought you went by the house," we express belief: something is accepted, held to, acquiesced in, or affirmed. But such thoughts may mean a supposition accepted without reference to its real grounds. These may be adequate, th... |
Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? [DEWEY]Such thoughts grow up unconsciously and without reference to the attainment of correct belief. They are picked up--we know not how. From obscure sources and by unnoticed channels they insinuate themselves into acceptance and become unconsciously a part of our mental furniture. Traditi... |
Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? [DEWEY] [1] This mode of thinking in its contrast with thoughtful inquiry receives special notice in the next chapter. [/DEWEY] |
Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? [DEWEY]IV. Thoughts that result in belief have an importance attached to them which leads to reflective thought, to conscious inquiry into the nature, conditions, and bearings of the belief. To _think_ of whales and camels in the clouds is to entertain ourselves with fancies, terminable at o... |
Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? [DEWEY]The consequences of a belief upon other beliefs and upon behavior may be so important, then, that men are forced to consider the grounds or reasons of their belief and its logical consequences. This means reflective thought--thought in its eulogistic and emphatic sense. [/DEWEY] |
Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? [DEWEY]Men _thought_ the world was flat until Columbus _thought_ it to be round. The earlier thought was a belief held because men had not the energy or the courage to question what those about them accepted and taught, especially as it was suggested and seemingly confirmed by obvious sensib... |
Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 2. _The Central Factor in Thinking_ ) [DEWEY]There are, however, no sharp lines of demarcation between the various operations just outlined. The problem of attaining correct habits of reflection would be much easier than it is, did not the different modes of thinking blend insensibly into... |
Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 2. _The Central Factor in Thinking_ ) [DEWEY]So far there is the same sort of situation as when one looking at a cloud is reminded of a human figure and face. Thinking in both of these cases (the cases of belief and of fancy) involves a noted or perceived fact, followed by something else ... |
Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 2. _The Central Factor in Thinking_ ) [DEWEY]This function by which one thing signifies or indicates another, and thereby leads us to consider how far one may be regarded as warrant for belief in the other, is, then, the central factor in all reflective or distinctively intellectual think... |
Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 2. _The Central Factor in Thinking_ ) [DEWEY] [2] _Implies_ is more often used when a principle or general truth brings about belief in some other truth; the other phrases are more frequently used to denote the cases in which one fact or event leads us to believe in somethi... |
Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 2. _The Central Factor in Thinking_ ) [DEWEY]Reflection thus implies that something is believed in (or disbelieved in), not on its own direct account, but through something else which stands as witness, evidence, proof, voucher, warrant; that is, as _ground of belief_. At one time, rain i... |
Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 2. _The Central Factor in Thinking_ ) [DEWEY]Thinking, for the purposes of this inquiry, is defined accordingly as _that operation in which present facts suggest other facts (or truths) in such a way as to induce belief in the latter upon the ground or warrant of the former_. We do not pu... |
Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 3. _Elements in Reflective Thinking_ ) [DEWEY](_a_) In our illustration, the shock of coolness generated confusion and suspended belief, at least momentarily. Because it was unexpected, it was a shock or an interruption needing to be accounted for, identified, or placed. To say that the a... |
Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 3. _Elements in Reflective Thinking_ ) [DEWEY](_b_) The turning of the head, the lifting of the eyes, the scanning of the heavens, are activities adapted to bring to recognition facts that will answer the question presented by the sudden coolness. The facts as they first presented themsel... |
Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 3. _Elements in Reflective Thinking_ ) [DEWEY]Another instance, commonplace also, yet not quite so trivial, may enforce this lesson. A man traveling in an unfamiliar region comes to a branching of the roads. Having no sure knowledge to fall back upon, he is brought to a standstill of hesi... |
Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 3. _Elements in Reflective Thinking_ ) [DEWEY]The above illustration may be generalized. Thinking begins in what may fairly enough be called a _forked-road_ situation, a situation which is ambiguous, which presents a dilemma, which proposes alternatives. As long as our activity glides smo... |
Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 3. _Elements in Reflective Thinking_ ) [DEWEY]_Demand for the solution of a perplexity is the steadying and guiding factor in the entire process of reflection._ Where there is no question of a problem to be solved or a difficulty to be surmounted, the course of suggestions flows on at ran... |
Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 4. _Summary_ ) [DEWEY]We may recapitulate by saying that the origin of thinking is some perplexity, confusion, or doubt. Thinking is not a case of spontaneous combustion; it does not occur just on "general principles." There is something specific which occasions and evokes it. General app... |
Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 4. _Summary_ ) [DEWEY]Given a difficulty, the next step is suggestion of some way out--the formation of some tentative plan or project, the entertaining of some theory which will account for the peculiarities in question, the consideration of some solution for the problem. The data at han... |
Chapter - WHAT IS THOUGHT? ( § 4. _Summary_ ) [DEWEY]If the suggestion that occurs is at once accepted, we have uncritical thinking, the minimum of reflection. To turn the thing over in mind, to reflect, means to hunt for additional evidence, for new data, that will develop the suggestion, and will either, as we say, b... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 4. _Summary_ ) [DEWEY]To expatiate upon the importance of thought would be absurd. The traditional definition of man as "the thinking animal" fixes thought as the essential difference between man and the brutes,--surely an important matter. More relevant to our purpose is the... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 1. _The Values of Thought_ ) [DEWEY]I. Thought affords the sole method of escape from purely impulsive or purely routine action. A being without capacity for thought is moved only by instincts and appetites, as these are called forth by outward conditions and by the inner sta... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 1. _The Values of Thought_ ) [DEWEY]An animal without thought may go into its hole when rain threatens, because of some immediate stimulus to its organism. A thinking agent will perceive that certain given facts are probable signs of a future rain, and will take steps in the ... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 1. _The Values of Thought_ ) [DEWEY]II. By thought man also develops and arranges artificial signs to remind him in advance of consequences, and of ways of securing and avoiding them. As the trait just mentioned makes the difference between savage man and brute, so this trait... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 1. _The Values of Thought_ ) [DEWEY]III. Finally, thought confers upon physical events and objects a very different status and value from that which they possess to a being that does not reflect. These words are mere scratches, curious variations of light and shade, to one to... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 1. _The Values of Thought_ ) [DEWEY]An English logician (Mr. Venn) has remarked that it may be questioned whether a dog _sees_ a rainbow any more than he apprehends the political constitution of the country in which he lives. The same principle applies to the kennel in which ... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 1. _The Values of Thought_ ) [DEWEY]These various values of the power of thought may be summed up in the following quotation from John Stuart Mill. "To draw inferences," he says, "has been said to be the great business of life. Every one has daily, hourly, and momentary need ... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 1. _The Values of Thought_ ) [DEWEY] [3] Mill, _System of Logic_, Introduction, § 5. [/DEWEY] |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 2. _Importance of Direction in order to Realize these Values_ ) [DEWEY]What a person has not only daily and hourly, but momentary need of performing, is not a technical and abstruse matter; nor, on the other hand, is it trivial and negligible. Such a function must be congenia... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 2. _Importance of Direction in order to Realize these Values_ ) [DEWEY]An earlier writer than Mill, John Locke (1632-1704), brings out the importance of thought for life and the need of training so that its best and not its worst possibilities will be realized, in the followi... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 2. _Importance of Direction in order to Realize these Values_ ) [DEWEY] [4] Locke, _Of the Conduct of the Understanding_, first paragraph. [/DEWEY] |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]Up to a certain point, the ordinary conditions of life, natural and social, provide the conditions requisite for regulating the operations of inference. The necessities of life enforce a fundamental and persistent disciplin... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]But this disciplinary training, efficacious as it is within certain limits, does not carry us beyond a restricted boundary. Logical attainment in one direction is no bar to extravagant conclusions in another. A savage exper... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]In the mere function of suggestion, there is no difference between the power of a column of mercury to portend rain, and that of the entrails of an animal or the flight of birds to foretell the fortunes of war. For all anyb... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]It is instructive to note some of the attempts that have been made to classify the main sources of error in reaching beliefs. Francis Bacon, for example, at the beginnings of modern scientific inquiry, enumerated four such ... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]Locke's method of dealing with typical forms of wrong belief is less formal and may be more enlightening. We can hardly do better than quote his forcible and quaint language, when, enumerating different classes of men, he s... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]1. "The first is of those who seldom reason at all, but do and think according to the example of others, whether parents, neighbors, ministers, or who else they are pleased to make choice of to have an implicit faith in, fo... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]2. "This kind is of those who put passion in the place of reason, and being resolved that shall govern their actions and arguments, neither use their own, nor hearken to other people's reason, any farther than it suits thei... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY] [5] In another place he says: "Men's prejudices and inclinations impose often upon themselves.... Inclination suggests and slides into discourse favorable terms, which introduce favorable ideas; till at last... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]3. "The third sort is of those who readily and sincerely follow reason, but for want of having that which one may call large, sound, roundabout sense, have not a full view of all that relates to the question.... They conver... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY] [6] _The Conduct of the Understanding_, § 3. [/DEWEY] |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]In another portion of his writings,[7] Locke states the same ideas in slightly different form. [/DEWEY] |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY] [7] _Essay Concerning Human Understanding_, bk. IV, ch. XX, "Of Wrong Assent or Error." [/DEWEY] |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]1. "That which is inconsistent with our _principles_ is so far from passing for probable with us that it will not be allowed possible. The reverence borne to these principles is so great, and their authority so paramount to... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]2. "Secondly, next to these are men whose understandings are cast into a mold, and fashioned just to the size of a received hypothesis." Such men, Locke goes on to say, while not denying the existence of facts and evidence,... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]3. "Predominant Passions. Thirdly, probabilities which cross men's appetites and prevailing passions run the same fate. Let ever so much probability hang on one side of a covetous man's reasoning, and money on the other, it... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]4. "Authority. The fourth and last wrong measure of probability I shall take notice of, and which keeps in ignorance or error more people than all the others together, is the giving up our assent to the common received opin... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 3. _Tendencies Needing Constant Regulation_ ) [DEWEY]Both Bacon and Locke make it evident that over and above the sources of misbelief that reside in the natural tendencies of the individual (like those toward hasty and too far-reaching conclusions), social conditions tend to... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 4. _Regulation Transforms Inference into Proof_ ) [DEWEY]Thinking is important because, as we have seen, it is that function in which given or ascertained facts stand for or indicate others which are not directly ascertained. But the process of reaching the absent from the pr... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 4. _Regulation Transforms Inference into Proof_ ) [DEWEY]Such attention consists in regulation (1) of the conditions under which the function of suggestion takes place, and (2) of the conditions under which credence is yielded to the suggestions that occur. Inference controll... |
Chapter - THE NEED FOR TRAINING THOUGHT ( § 4. _Regulation Transforms Inference into Proof_ ) [DEWEY]While it is not the business of education to prove every statement made, any more than to teach every possible item of information, it is its business to cultivate deep-seated and effective habits of discriminating test... |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 4. _Regulation Transforms Inference into Proof_ ) [DEWEY]In the last chapter we considered the need of transforming, through training, the natural capacities of inference into habits of critical examination and inquiry. The very importance of thought for life m... |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 4. _Regulation Transforms Inference into Proof_ ) [DEWEY]Teaching and learning are correlative or corresponding processes, as much so as selling and buying. One might as well say he has sold when no one has bought, as to say that he has taught when no one has l... |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 4. _Regulation Transforms Inference into Proof_ ) [DEWEY]Any inventory of the items of this natural capital is somewhat arbitrary because it must pass over many of the complex details. But a statement of the factors essential to thought will put before us in ou... |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 1. _Curiosity_ ) [DEWEY]The most vital and significant factor in supplying the primary material whence suggestion may issue is, without doubt, curiosity. The wisest of the Greeks used to say that wonder is the mother of all science. An inert mind waits, as it w... |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 1. _Curiosity_ ) [DEWEY] "The eye--it cannot choose but see; We cannot bid the ear be still; Our bodies feel, where'er they be, Against or with our will"-- [/DEWEY] |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 1. _Curiosity_ ) [DEWEY]holds good in the degree in which one is naturally possessed by curiosity. The curious mind is constantly alert and exploring, seeking material for thought, as a vigorous and healthy body is on the _qui vive_ for nutriment. Eagerness for... |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 1. _Curiosity_ ) [DEWEY](_a_) In its first manifestations, curiosity is a vital overflow, an expression of an abundant organic energy. A physiological uneasiness leads a child to be "into everything,"--to be reaching, poking, pounding, prying. Observers of anim... |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 1. _Curiosity_ ) [DEWEY] [8] Hobhouse, _Mind in Evolution_, p. 195. [/DEWEY] |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 1. _Curiosity_ ) [DEWEY](_b_) A higher stage of curiosity develops under the influence of social stimuli. When the child learns that he can appeal to others to eke out his store of experiences, so that, if objects fail to respond interestingly to his experiment... |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 1. _Curiosity_ ) [DEWEY](_c_) Curiosity rises above the organic and the social planes and becomes intellectual in the degree in which it is transformed into interest in _problems_ provoked by the observation of things and the accumulation of material. When the ... |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Suggestion_ ) [DEWEY]The function of suggestion has a variety of aspects (or dimensions as we may term them), varying in different persons, both in themselves and in their mode of combination. These dimensions are ease or promptness, extent or variety, and ... |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Suggestion_ ) [DEWEY]Yet the teacher is not entitled to assume stupidity or even dullness merely because of irresponsiveness to school subjects or to a lesson as presented by text-book or teacher. The pupil labeled hopeless may react in quick and lively fas... |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Suggestion_ ) [DEWEY](_b_) Irrespective of the difference in persons as to the ease and promptness with which ideas respond to facts, there is a difference in the number or range of the suggestions that occur. We speak truly, in some cases, of the flood of ... |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Suggestion_ ) [DEWEY]A conclusion reached after consideration of a few alternatives may be formally correct, but it will not possess the fullness and richness of meaning of one arrived at after comparison of a greater variety of alternative suggestions. On ... |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Suggestion_ ) [DEWEY](_c_) _Depth._ We distinguish between people not only upon the basis of their quickness and fertility of intellectual response, but also with respect to the plane upon which it occurs--the intrinsic quality of the response. [/DEWEY] |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Suggestion_ ) [DEWEY]One man's thought is profound while another's is superficial; one goes to the roots of the matter, and another touches lightly its most external aspects. This phase of thinking is perhaps the most untaught of all, and the least amenable... |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Suggestion_ ) [DEWEY]Sometimes slowness and depth of response are intimately connected. Time is required in order to digest impressions, and translate them into substantial ideas. "Brightness" may be but a flash in the pan. The "slow but sure" person, wheth... |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Suggestion_ ) [DEWEY]It is profitable to study the lives of men and women who achieve in adult life fine things in their respective callings, but who were called dull in their school days. Sometimes the early wrong judgment was due mainly to the fact that t... |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Suggestion_ ) [DEWEY]In any event, it is desirable that the teacher should rid himself of the notion that "thinking" is a single, unalterable faculty; that he should recognize that it is a term denoting the various ways in which things acquire significance.... |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Orderliness: Its Nature_ ) [DEWEY]Facts, whether narrow or extensive, and conclusions suggested by them, whether many or few, do not constitute, even when combined, reflective thought. The suggestions must be _organized_; they must be arranged with referenc... |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Orderliness: Its Nature_ ) [DEWEY]On the other hand, it is not enough _not_ to be diverted. A deadly and fanatic consistency is not our goal. Concentration does not mean fixity, nor a cramped arrest or paralysis of the flow of suggestion. It means variety a... |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Orderliness: Its Nature_ ) [DEWEY]In the main, for most persons, the primary resource in the development of orderly habits of thought is indirect, not direct. Intellectual organization originates and for a time grows as an accompaniment of the organization ... |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Orderliness: Its Nature_ ) [DEWEY]Such a resource--the main prop of disciplined thinking in adult life--is not to be despised in training the young in right intellectual habits. There are, however, profound differences between the immature and the adult in ... |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Orderliness: Its Nature_ ) [DEWEY](_i_) The selection and arrangement of appropriate lines of action is a much more difficult problem as respects youth than it is in the case of adults. With the latter, the main lines are more or less settled by circumstanc... |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Orderliness: Its Nature_ ) [DEWEY](_ii_) This very difficulty, however, points to the fact that the _opportunity for selecting truly educative activities_ is indefinitely greater in child life than in adult. The factor of external pressure is so strong with... |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Orderliness: Its Nature_ ) [DEWEY]Educational practice shows a continual tendency to oscillate between two extremes with respect to overt and exertive activities. One extreme is to neglect them almost entirely, on the ground that they are chaotic and fluctu... |
Chapter - NATURAL RESOURCES IN THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Orderliness: Its Nature_ ) [DEWEY]While we vibrate from one of these extremes to the other, the most serious of all problems is ignored: the problem, namely, of discovering and arranging the forms of activity (_a_) which are most congenial, best adapted, to... |
Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Orderliness: Its Nature_ ) [DEWEY]The so-called faculty-psychology went hand in hand with the vogue of the formal-discipline idea in education. If thought is a distinct piece of mental machinery, separate from observation, memory, imagination, and common-s... |
Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Orderliness: Its Nature_ ) [DEWEY]We have tried to make it clear in the previous chapters that there is no single and uniform power of thought, but a multitude of different ways in which specific things--things observed, remembered, heard of, read about--e... |
Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Orderliness: Its Nature_ ) [DEWEY]The teacher's problem is thus twofold. On the one side, he needs (as we saw in the last chapter) to be a student of individual traits and habits; on the other side, he needs to be a student of the conditions that modify fo... |
Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Influence of the Habits of Others_ ) [DEWEY]To confine, however, the conditioning influence of the educator, whether parent or teacher, to imitation is to get a very superficial view of the intellectual influence of others. Imitation is but one case of a d... |
Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Influence of the Habits of Others_ ) [DEWEY] [9] A child of four or five who had been repeatedly called to the house by his mother with no apparent response on his own part, was asked if he did not hear her. He replied quite judicially, "Oh, yes... |
Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Influence of the Habits of Others_ ) [DEWEY]The extent and power of this influence upon morals and manners, upon character, upon habits of speech and social bearing, are almost universally recognized. But the tendency to conceive of thought as an isolated ... |
Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Influence of the Habits of Others_ ) [DEWEY] [10] People who have _number-forms_--_i.e._ project number series into space and see them arranged in certain shapes--when asked why they have not mentioned the fact before, often reply that it never ... |
Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Influence of the Habits of Others_ ) [DEWEY](_b_) Teachers--and this holds especially of the stronger and better teachers--tend to rely upon their personal strong points to hold a child to his work, and thereby to substitute their personal influence for th... |
Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 2. _Influence of the Habits of Others_ ) [DEWEY](_c_) The operation of the teacher's own mental habit tends, unless carefully watched and guided, to make the child a student of the teacher's peculiarities rather than of the subjects that he is supposed to stud... |
Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Influence of the Nature of Studies_ ) [DEWEY]Studies are conventionally and conveniently grouped under these heads: (1) Those especially involving the acquisition of skill in performance--the school arts, such as reading, writing, figuring, and music. (2) ... |
Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Influence of the Nature of Studies_ ) [DEWEY] [11] Of course, any one subject has all three aspects: _e.g._ in arithmetic, counting, writing, and reading numbers, rapid adding, etc., are cases of skill in doing; the tables of weights and mea... |
Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Influence of the Nature of Studies_ ) [DEWEY](_a_) In the case of the so-called disciplinary or pre-eminently logical studies, there is danger of the isolation of intellectual activity from the ordinary affairs of life. Teacher and student alike tend to se... |
Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Influence of the Nature of Studies_ ) [DEWEY](_b_) The danger in those studies where the main emphasis is upon acquisition of skill is just the reverse. The tendency is to take the shortest cuts possible to gain the required end. This makes the subjects _m... |
Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Influence of the Nature of Studies_ ) [DEWEY](_c_) Much the same sort of thing is to be said regarding studies where emphasis traditionally falls upon bulk and accuracy of information. The distinction between information and wisdom is old, and yet requires... |
Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( § 3. _Influence of the Nature of Studies_ ) [DEWEY]But there is all the difference in the world whether the acquisition of information is treated as an end in itself, or is made an integral portion of the training of thought. The assumption that information whic... |
Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( §4. _The Influence of Current Aims and Ideals_ ) [DEWEY](_a_) In instruction, the external standard manifests itself in the importance attached to the "correct answer." No one other thing, probably, works so fatally against focussing the attention of teachers up... |
Chapter - SCHOOL CONDITIONS AND THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT ( §4. _The Influence of Current Aims and Ideals_ ) [DEWEY](_b_) With reference to behavior also, the external ideal has a great influence. Conformity of acts to precepts and rules is the easiest, because most mechanical, standard to employ. It is no part of our pr... |
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