The reactionaries are in possession of force, in not only the army and police, but in the press and the schools
Interpretation
Dewey highlights how reactionary forces control various societal institutions, including the military, media, and education.
John Dewey's quote reflects on the significant influence that reactionary forces hold over vital societal institutions like the military, police, media, and educational systems. It suggests that these forces use their control not just to maintain order but to shape public perception and opinion, which can hinder progressive change and critical thinking in society. Dewey calls attention to the need for awareness about these dynamics to encourage a more informed and equitable public discourse.
In practice
In a panel discussion on media influence, this quote serves as a reminder of who shapes public narratives.
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 βism becomes so involved in reaction against other βisms 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.
Communication of science as subject-matter has so far outrun in education the construction of a scientific habit of mind that to some extent the natural common sense of mankind has been interfered with to its detriment.
If children have interest, then Education happens
Black children need to see their lives reflected in the books they read. If they don't, they won't feel welcome in the world of literature. The lives of African-Americans are rich and diverse, and the books our children read should reflect that.
Mom was an academic, so the riches that she had to bestow were of the mind.
The young writer should learn to spot them: words that at first glance seem freighted with delicious meaning, but that soon burst in the air, leaving nothing but a memory of bright sound.
People don't realize how a man's whole life can be changed by one book.
Whoever touches the life of the child touches the most sensitive point of a whole which has roots in the most distant past and climbs toward the infinite future.
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