If, then, you wish to insure the interest of your pupils, there is only one way to do it; and that is to make certain that they have something in their minds to attend with, when you begin to talk. That something can consist in nothing but a previous lot of ideas already interesting in themselves, and of such a nature that the incoming novel objects which you present can dovetail into them and form with them some kind of a logically associated or systematic whole.
Interpretation
Engaging students requires connecting new ideas to their existing knowledge and interests.
William James emphasizes the importance of ensuring that learners have a foundational understanding and interest before introducing new concepts. By linking new information to familiar ideas, educators can facilitate better retention and understanding, creating a cohesive learning experience that promotes critical thinking and deeper engagement.
In practice
During a teacher training session to motivate new educators.
Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived from twitching of frogs' legs (especially if the frogs are decapitated) and that, on the other hand, any doctrine chiefly vouched for by the feelings of human beings (with heads on their shoulders) must be benighted and superstitious.
The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.
All the higher, more penetrating ideals are revolutionary. They present themselves far less in the guise of effects of past experience than in that of probable causes of future experience, factors to which the environment and the lessons it has so far taught us must learn to bend.
The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association
As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors.
Like all readers, I want my limits to be drawn by my own sensibilities, not by my melanin count.
We need to get to kids who have no idea what we do. We need to open the doors wide and let them in. There are many undiscovered voices out there - voices that, against all odds, can rise up and enrich this culture and perhaps change the very nature of the marketplace for the better.
As an empowerment right, education is the primary vehicle by which economically and socially marginalised adults and children can lift themselves out of poverty, and obtain the means to participate fully in their communities.
We travel to learn; and I have never been in any country where they did not do something better than we do it, think some thoughts better than we think, catch some inspiration from heights above our own.
As children growing up here in the East Bay, we were raised by a community with a deep belief in the promise of our country - and, a deep understanding of the parts of that promise that still remain unfulfilled.
BE A STUDENT BY STAYING OPEN AND WILLING TO LEARN FROM EVERYONE AND ANYONE.
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