We do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.
B. F. SkinnerRead
Was putting a man on the moon actually easier than improving education in our public schools?
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that complex achievements can be less challenging than solving entrenched societal issues like education.
B. F. Skinner's quote reflects on the paradox that while landing a man on the moon was an extraordinary technological feat, addressing and improving the public education system is often viewed as a more difficult task. It provokes thought about the priorities society places on education compared to monumental scientific achievements and highlights the complexities involved in enacting meaningful reform in education.
Themes
EducationImprovementMoon LandingPublic SchoolsSociety
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a speech at a teachers' conference to emphasize the challenges in educational reform.
More from B. F. Skinner
All quotes βEach of us has interests which conflict the interests of everybody else... 'everybody else' we call 'society'. It's a powerful opponent and it always wins. Oh, here and there an individual prevails for a while and gets what he wants. Sometimes he storms the culture of a society and changes it to his own advantage. But society wins in the long run, for it has the advantage of numbers and of age.
B. F. SkinnerRead
No theory changes what it is a theory about; man remains what he has always been.
B. F. SkinnerRead
I am opposed to the military use of animals. I am also opposed to the military use of men.
B. F. SkinnerRead
The ideal of behaviorism is to eliminate coercion: to apply controls by changing the environment in such a way as to reinforce the kind of behavior that benefits everyone.
B. F. SkinnerRead
Unable to understand how or why the person we see behaves as he does, we attribute his behavior to a person we cannot see, whose behavior we cannot explain either but about whom we are not inclined to ask questions.
B. F. SkinnerRead
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I believe we owe our young an education that captures the exhilarating drama of science.
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