Teaching as a Subversive Activity (1969)
Context: The BASIC FUNCTION of all education, even in the most traditional sense, is to increase the survival prospects of the group. If this function is fulfilled, the group survives. If not, it doesn't. There have been times when this function was not fulfilled, and groups (some of them we even call "civilizations") disappeared. Generally, this resulted from changes in the kind of threats the group faced. The threats changed, but the education did not, and so the group, in a way, "disappeared itself" (to use a phrase from Catch-22). The tendency seems to be for most "educational" systems, from patterns of training in "primitive" tribal societies to school systems in technological societies, to fall imperceptibly into a role devoted exclusively to the conservation of old ideas, concepts, attitudes, skills, and perceptions. This happens largely because of the unconsciously held belief that these old ways of thinking and doing are necessary to the survival of the group. …Survival in a stable environment depends almost entirely on remembering the strategies for survival that have been developed in the past, and so the conservation and transmission of these becomes the primary mission of education. But, a paradoxical situation develops when change becomes the primary characteristic of the environment. Then the task turns inside out — survival in a rapidly changing environment depends almost entirely upon being able to identify which of the old concepts are relevant to the demands imposed by the new threats to survival, and which are not. Then a new educational task becomes critical: getting the group to unlearn (to "forget") the irrelevant concepts as a prior condition of learning. What we are saying is that the "selective forgetting" is necessary for survival.
Source: Emotional amoral egoism (2008), p.71
Source: The Social Psychology of Organizations (1966), p. 34
Source: 1940s, Frontiers in group dynamics II, 1947, p. 153.
Source: "World cannot shut China out, vice president says, in jab at U.S." in Reuters https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-diplomacy/world-cannot-shut-china-out-vice-president-says-in-jab-at-u-s-idUSKCN1U303U (7 July 2019)
(zh-TW) 萬物依存大自然，平衡動態順其緣。
栽花植樹維佳境，繁殖新生種福田。
"Reproduction" (繁殖新生)
Source: Deng Feng-Zhou, "Deng Feng-Zhou Classical Chinese Poetry Anthology". Volume 6, Tainan, 2018: 87.
This related misquote http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/six-things-darwin-never-said appeared in The Living Clocks (1971) by Ritchie R. Ward.
Misattributed
Teaching as a Subversive Activity (1969)
Context: Suppose all of the syllabi and curricula and textbooks in the schools disappeared. Suppose all of the standardized tests — city-wide, state-wide, and national — were lost. In other words, suppose that the most common material impeding innovation in the schools simply did not exist. Then suppose that you decided to turn this "catastrophe" into an opportunity to increase the relevance of schools. What would you do? We have a possibility for you to consider: suppose that you decide to have the entire "curriculum" consist of questions. These questions would have to be worth seeking answers to not only from your point of view but, more importantly, from the point of view of the students. In order to get still closer to reality, add the requirement that the questions must help the students to develop and internalize concepts that will help them to survive in the rapidly changing world of the present and future.... What questions would you have on your list? Take a pencil and list your questions...
