Twitter Book Club: Earl C. Kelley (1947) Education For What Is Real

I put this book on my "to read" list last year after re-reading John Dewey's Education and Experience. In that book Dewey recommends this book as containing the most important research of the time regarding psychology and education. You can't get much higher praise than that and this book didn't disappoint. This is a very quick read and I also highly recommend it to anyone working in education, especially those working in policy, curriculum design, and school administration. Though this book really is not about any of those things it is about building evidence for laying a new foundation, or at least questioning the foundation we currently have, for building a conception of teaching, learning, and reality.

@anderscj
anderscj"When the common foe was vanquished, we lost our common purpose and began again to fight amongst ourselves." Kelley 36 days ago via Twittelator · powered by @socialditto

This calls into serious question the nature of the human condition. Are we predisposed to fight? Must we always have and "other" we consider our enemy? To what degree does this define us?

@anderscj
anderscj"Now we became capitalist imperialists. The ghost of Hitler must have laughed!" Kelley 36 days ago via Twittelator · powered by @socialditto

Reading this book now is quite timely.

@anderscj
anderscj"During the war we had been lacking in man power, so many of our depressed peoples had been brought into use and ha... http://t.co/Klquu5z 36 days ago via Twittelator · powered by @socialditto

"During the war we had been lacking in man power, so many of our depressed peoples had been brought into use and had attained an economic status never before enjoyed by them. We were confronted with the problem of putting them back in their proper places. They were holding jobs we wanted." Kelley

That was the issue following WWII, this is now:

@anderscj
anderscj"Each usually justifies his selfish act with the pious statement that if he has his way, those whom he hopes to tak... http://t.co/kPSoyhP 36 days ago via Twittelator · powered by @socialditto

"Each usually justifies his selfish act with the pious statement that if he has his way, those whom he hopes to take advantage of will be somehow better off." Kelley

This is exactly what NCLB was founded on. It has always been packaged and sold to the public as a program to bring higher standards and better schools for the poor. The result of this disastrous program have been exactly the opposite. Now that NCLB has proven a failure we are trying a new equally ill conceived idea that everyone is getting behind that basically is rooted in the same false thinking that has failed us ever since A Nation at Risk kicked off the standards movement. Now evidently Common Core Standards are what are going to save us. Anyone following education in the US for more than a few years and has a sense of what schools were like in the now distant past should be able to see this a program that is designed to fail. Certainly those "common" standards are going to find some groups more privilleged than others and who will those standards be written to give advantage to? Whose story will they tell? Whose world view will they portray? And, who will they tell us these standards are supposed to help?

@anderscj
anderscj"When we know a condition in advance, and do nothing about it, one is forced to the conclusion that we do not reall... http://t.co/zPpgt2i 36 days ago via Twittelator · powered by @socialditto

"When we know a condition in advance, and do nothing about it, one is forced to the conclusion that we do not really care about it, or have some undisclosed reason for failing to take action." Kelley

or we have been so beaten down that we feel there is nothing we can do to change things anyway.

@anderscj
anderscj"Delinquency is a measure of adult neglect of children, for the children are all right when we get them." Kelley 36 days ago via Twittelator · powered by @socialditto

@anderscj
anderscj"We provide so-called education for our children, but it is miserably supported. The buildings are mostly old and c... http://t.co/wS86gOB 36 days ago via Twittelator · powered by @socialditto

OK, SocialDitto just stopped working for me. Please excuse the crude embeds to follow.

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"The outstanding characteristic of our age seems to be fear. Man has of course always known fear, but as our capaci... tl.gd/d13ilf

10 Sep

WMDs anyone?

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"Fear is the motivating factor in our schools. Children, for fear of consequences, are made to study what they woul... tl.gd/d13la7

11 Sep

Reminds me of the veteran teachers who when I first started advised me not to smile until Christmas.

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"The step from hatred engendered by fear to violence is a short one" Kelley

11 Sep

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"Often the very methods we use to solve delinquency are in the pattern which caused it." Kelley

11 Sep

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"Fear, being a most destructive emotion, makes man do many things that are against his own best interests." Kelley

11 Sep

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"Some people, in fact, can become so involved in abstractions that they spend most of their lives among them." Kelley

13 Sep

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"those who live almost entirely in a world of books depart from reality in that they fail to gain experience in 'ho... tl.gd/d2t9el

13 Sep

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"We select the coincidences in nature which we choose to register." Kelley

13 Sep

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"Nature never repeats or standardizes. We standardize and classify (make statistical averages) because it increases... tl.gd/d2tgos

13 Sep

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"Purpose is not so hard to comprehend if we borrow from Kilpatrick and say that a thing is what it does. In this se... tl.gd/d2tl4e

13 Sep

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"When externality takes on new meaning, habit patterns become inadequate and must be revised. Some people do this r... tl.gd/d2tt9n

13 Sep

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"The most important factor in education then becomes the arrangements that the one to be educated makes with his en... tl.gd/d2tv94

13 Sep

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"No one can ever completely understand another person. This is true because we can never fully get the other person... tl.gd/d2u3a6

13 Sep

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"I can get my stimuli from the same objects as you do, but I cannot bring the same purpose and experience to them t... tl.gd/d3gei6

14 Sep

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"Our absolutes in the world of knowledge become a little ridiculous when we look back at the absolutes held by others in the past." Kelley

14 Sep

This is a point I have been saying here on my blog for quite some time and another thing that drives me nuts about the Common Core movement. Its like now that we have been using Wikipedia for a decade people have forgotten the ridiculousness of having outdated encyclopedias. Could same forgetfulness help to create favorable conditions for a meme like Common Core to flourish and grow? The public does have a remarkably short memory. I wonder how many Americans have already forgotten about the oil spill disaster in the gulf. I suspect quite a few.

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"Surely there is nothing more uncertain than facts as to what happened yesterday, to say nothing of a hundred years ago." Kelley

14 Sep

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"The most successful and adjusted people then will be those who know that whatever tomorrow may be, it must be diff... tl.gd/d3gjpv

14 Sep

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"If he had not assumed the role of an authority, we could have all learned from each other, and the professor might... tl.gd/d3gln9

14 Sep

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"It would thus appear that there is no item of human knowledge that somebody could not get along without." Kelley

14 Sep

Lets repeat that in bold so it stands out. Lets open the windows and scream it at the top of our lungs:

"there is no item of human knowledge that somebody could not get along without."

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"We all know people who have acquired much subject matter and have remained uneducated." Kelley

14 Sep

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"It might be difficult to teach twelve-year-olds to invert the divisor and multiply in order to divide one fraction... tl.gd/d3gqcq

14 Sep

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"to educate a child he should be thrown with as many different kinds of people as possible." Kelley

14 Sep

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"Instead of teaching a child of six to read because he will sometime need to read, we might let the need for readin... tl.gd/d3gu27

14 Sep

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"when we make children 'learn' that for which they see no need, it is doubtful that learning goes on at all." Kelley

14 Sep

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"we have to abandon the 'essentials.' If we teach in accordance with the student's purpose to learn, then the probl... tl.gd/d3h257

14 Sep

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@arneduncan @irasocol @DianeRavitch @joe_bower Wouldn't this also be true of the Dept. Of Ed? tl.gd/d3h257

14 Sep

Lets print that in full:

"we have to abandon the 'essentials.' If we teach in accordance with the student's purpose to learn, then the problem of getting the young to assume responsibility arises. Whenever he does anything in response to his purpose, he has assumed responsibility, for it was his purpose, not the teacher's. When he does something in response to the purpose of another, he has not assumed responsibility, but he has obeyed orders. If the teacher is going to furnish the purpose, he must also assume the responsibility." Kelley "

@irasocol
Ira Socol@anderscj great quote, of course @arneduncan has never taken responsibility for any problem, big or small @DianeRavitch @joe_bower 32 days ago via UberSocial for Android · powered by @socialditto

@anderscj
anderscj@irasocol that quote outlines exactly the major problem with Common Core @dianeravitch @arneduncan @joe_bower 32 days ago via Mobile Web · powered by @socialditto

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"In true problem solving, the problem must be real, that is, it must be so contrived that its solution becomes impo... tl.gd/d3h6en

15 Sep

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"We miseducate almost universally in that we fail to realize the educative value of mistakes." Kelley

15 Sep

@anderscj
anderscj"We are all products of the traditional school, and its habits are deeply imbedded, even in those of us who have co... http://t.co/lbzKYe40 31 days ago via Twittelator · powered by @socialditto

@anderscj
anderscj"no manufacturer would consider it good business to give a worker twice the amount of work that he could do. Yet we... http://t.co/hEktenz2 31 days ago via Twittelator · powered by @socialditto

@anderscj
anderscj"Many of our schools seem to be ineffective because we get the building, the materials, the curriculum, and the tea... http://t.co/BFrnxBJB 31 days ago via Twittelator · powered by @socialditto

@anderscj
anderscj"When children are pursuing their own purposes, extrinsic frustration will be so eliminated that the need for treat... http://t.co/BQ0ZaDDf 31 days ago via Twittelator · powered by @socialditto

"When children are pursuing their own purposes, extrinsic frustration will be so eliminated that the need for treatment in mental health will be greatly reduced." Kelley

I've long suspected that schools and other institutions are the cause of many mental illnesses and learning disabilities.

@anderscj
anderscj"What the teacher has no right to do is to attempt to demand interest." Kelley 31 days ago via Twittelator · powered by @socialditto

@anderscj
anderscj"no child ever became delinquent who had one real adult friend who actually cared what became of him." Kelley 31 days ago via Twittelator · powered by @socialditto

@anderscj
anderscj"The most important evaluation in such a school would be precisely the one made by the student himself" Kelley 31 days ago via Twittelator · powered by @socialditto

@anderscj
anderscj"To assume that when the teacher is no longer the authoritarian each is free to do whatever enters his mind is to a... http://t.co/40DDsm0r 30 days ago via Twittelator · powered by @socialditto

@anderscj
anderscj"If I wanted freedom, in the sense of license to do as I pleased, I would take my chances with the autocrat for he ... http://t.co/ZZyvqusE 30 days ago via Twittelator · powered by @socialditto

@anderscj
anderscj"You cannot get me to assume your responsibility by telling you what to do. This is your day, and you cannot look t... http://t.co/nMan42p4 30 days ago via Twittelator · powered by @socialditto

I love that line:

"You cannot get me to assume your responsibility by telling you what to do. This is your day, and you cannot look to others to be responsible for the use you make of it." Kelley

@anderscj
anderscj"There is a difference between scheming to bring about predetermined outcomes and offering rich opportunities for c... http://t.co/EiGFsoMQ 30 days ago via Twittelator · powered by @socialditto

@SheilaSpeaking
Sheila Stewart@anderscj that statement clarifies and sums up a lot! 30 days ago via web · powered by @socialditto

@anderscj
anderscj@SheilaSpeaking that book was awesome. Its very short but I highly highly recommend it. 30 days ago via Twitterrific · powered by @socialditto

@SheilaSpeaking
Sheila Stewart@anderscj just had a convo/insight with my oldest similar to the one I just rt'd. 30 days ago via web · powered by @socialditto

@anderscj
anderscj@SheilaSpeaking somehow that quote coming from just after WWII adds to its weight 30 days ago via Mobile Web · powered by @socialditto

@anderscj
anderscj"A stimulating experience for any teacher is to stop and ask himself why he teaches his subject. What is it for? Wh... http://t.co/SNDK2954 30 days ago via Twittelator · powered by @socialditto

@anderscj
anderscj"The more unlike us another is, the more we need him." Kelley 30 days ago via Twittelator · powered by @socialditto