Too rarely is the individual teacher so free from the dictation of authoritative supervisor, textbook on methods, prescribed course of study, etc., that he can let his mind come to close quarters with the pupil's mind and the subject matter.
Interpretation
Teachers should have the freedom to engage directly with students and subject matter without external constraints.
John Dewey emphasizes the importance of a teacher's autonomy in education. He argues that true learning occurs when teachers can deeply connect with their students and the material they are teaching, rather than being bound by rigid guidelines and external pressures. This approach fosters a more meaningful educational experience that prioritizes genuine understanding and interaction over conformity to prescribed methods.
In practice
In a teacher training seminar, to inspire educators to embrace more innovative teaching methods.
Every teacher should realize he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of the proper social order and the securing of the right social growth. In this way, the teacher always is the prophet of the true God and the usherer-in of the true Kingdom of God.
Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.
It science involves an intelligent and persistent endeavor to revise current beliefs so as to weed out what is erroneous, to add to their accuracy, and, above all, to give them such shape that the dependencies of the various facts upon one another may be as obvious as possible.
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.
Any genuine teaching will result, if successful, in someone's knowing how to bring about a better condition of things than existed earlier.
The reactionaries are in possession of force, in not only the army and police, but in the press and the schools
I always wanted to grow up in a house full of books, English books, and I wanted the sort of fireplaces that worked, overstuffed chairs, that whole kind of fantasy of a bookish New England life. So the library gave me that; for the hours that I was there, I was surrounded by that atmosphere that I craved in my life.
Headmasters have powers at their disposal with which Prime ministers have never yet been invested.
The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn.
One of my great laments is that education today seems to have... be less about passion and more about process, more about tactic or technique.
Wonder implies the desire to learn.
I am fascinated by language in daily life: the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth.
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