Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.
John DeweyRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Teachers play a crucial role in maintaining a proper social order and fostering growth in society.
John Dewey emphasizes the significant responsibility of teachers in shaping society. He views educators as vital social servants whose work is not only to impart knowledge but also to guide and influence the social development of their students. By fulfilling this role, teachers fulfill a higher purpose, akin to that of prophets, by promoting values that contribute to a just and equitable society.
Themes
TeacherEducationSocial GrowthSocial OrderResponsibility
In practice
Example use cases
During a faculty meeting, discussing the critical role teachers play in shaping future citizens.
More from John Dewey
All quotes →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.
John DeweyRead
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.
John DeweyRead
Any genuine teaching will result, if successful, in someone's knowing how to bring about a better condition of things than existed earlier.
John DeweyRead
The reactionaries are in possession of force, in not only the army and police, but in the press and the schools
John DeweyRead
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.
John DeweyRead
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