Self Directed Learning Quotes

It was my assumption that skilled teachers spent their days imparting important and meaningful knowledge to eager students. I also believed, as many of you do, that I didn't remember or wasn't good at the things we learned in high school because I didn't pay close enough attention or didn't work hard enough. ~ Brian Huskie

Going to school is rarely a choice at all, but rather just the thing you do because everyone else does it. ~ Brian Huskie

I'm sure if Socrates were alive today, and had to sit through even a single meeting discussing how to use data to inform instruction, he'd kill himself all over again. ~ Brian Huskie

Free human dialogue, wandering wherever the agility of the mind allows, lies at the heart of education. If teachers do not have the time, the incentive, or the wit to produce that; if students are too demoralized, bored, or distracted to muster the attention their teachers need of them, then THAT is the educational problem which has to be solved ... That problem ... is metaphysical in nature, not technical ~ Neil Postman

How many of us have read history, and shook our heads and puffed our chest, and said, "If I were alive during that period, I would never have done those things to those people!" Yet here we are, doing those things to those people. ~ Brian Huskie

A teenager's nature is not laziness, their preferred state is not ignorance, and it is not necessary for extrinsic motivation to be delivered by trained professionals in order to prevent them from bareknuckle boxing under a bridge in exchange for drugs and money. ~ Brian Huskie

And there you sit, atop the smoking mountain of rubble that was once your home, covered in gray dust, cradling the mangled corpse of your little girl in your arms, looking south to a Mexican people who, in solidarity with you, have stopped riding Uber. ~ Brian Huskie

Know what you're working toward and eliminate debt, so that if you change your mind later it doesn't kill you to know you have a hundred thousand dollar biology degree hanging in the kitchen of the tapas restaurant you just opened. ~ Brian Huskie

Maybe you've noticed what I've noticed, and thought it strange, or dismissed it as youthful foolishness or that you were missing some critical piece of information that would reveal itself with age and wisdom – that is: every single teacher believes feverishly in the importance of the content of their class, and furthermore, believes that their assessment of you in their class is a direct measure of your capacity for future success, while simultaneously not having a clue as to the content of virtually any other discipline in the school. They will boldly state things like, That's math, I'm an English teacher or That's literature, I'm a biology teacher, practically admitting out loud that nothing learned in school is important (except, of course, the course they are teaching). ~ Brian Huskie

I tend to agree with Robert Frost when he says, 'Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.' By this definition, I don't think anyone can claim that we are successfully educating this next generation. ~ Brian Huskie

Another significant factor that increased pressure on the Jews was the rise of the mendicant orders of preaching friars, the Dominicans and the Franciscans. The Dominicans in particular were to become leaders in the campaign against the Jews. Saint Dominic probably never imagined that his order would initiate the Spanish Inquisition and oversee the public immolation of heretics. The only torment he advocated was self-directed. ~ Jeffrey Gorsky

Whenever human activity is directed exclusively to the service of the instinct for self-preservation it is called theft or usury, robbery or burglary etc ~ Adolf Hitler

Boldness ... is outer directed ... and makes others feel more at ease because it's less self-conscious. ~ Robert Greene

Spend the most time with your best people ... Talent is the multiplier. THe more energy and attention you invest in it, the greater the yield. The time you spend with your best is, quite simply, your most productive time ... Persistence directed primarily toward your non-talents is self-destructive ... You will reprimand yourself, berate yourself, and put yourself through all manner of contortions in an attempt to achieve the impossible. ~ Marcus Buckingham

Among pernicious myths is the one where people always get very upbeat and generous and other-directed right before they eliminate their own map for keeps. The truth is that the hours before a suicide are usually an interval of enormous conceit and self-involvement. ~ David Foster Wallace

Having expressed the rage against the laws and conditions that oppressed them - maybe even excess anger in the beginning was directed at men they came in contact with, because it had been pent up too long - women now come from a new position of easier, more comfortable self-affirmation and empowerment. Women are given to tolerance and are more able to love. I hope it happens also to men. ~ Betty Friedan

No matter how flat or sad his or her affect appears, the suicidally depressed adolescent is desperately trying to contain feelings of anger, rage, hatred, and violence. The suicide or the attempt represents the final self-destructive display of this rage. Where previously the rage may have been expressed in anti-social behaviors or directed at parents, school (the "system"), or a girl/boyfriend, now it has been turned inward. Not surprisingly, the suicide rate is much higher among runaways, teens in jail, and juvenile delinquents. Don't fear this anger! Allow the adolescent to express it; mobilize the anger rather than permitting it to remain festering inside, growing increasingly poisonous. ~ Andrew Slaby

By declaring that man is responsible and must actualize the potential meaning of his life, I wish to stress that the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system. I have termed this constitutive characteristic "the self-transcendence of human existence." It denotes the fact that being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself
be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself
by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love
the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

The fact that the human act is self-directed or built up means in no sense that the actor necessarily exercises excellence in its construction. Indeed, he may do a very poor job in constructing his act. ~ Herbert Blumer

When you concentrate your energy purposely on the future possibility that you aspire to realize, your energy is passed on to it and makes it attracted to you with a force stronger than the one you directed towards it. ~ Stephen Richards

Anger is remembered pain, fear is anticipated pain, guilt is self directed pain, depression is depletion of energy. Cure-return to love& joy ~ Deepak Chopra

Going forward, you must adjust to the new reality, be more self directed, and learn to be productive under the reign of uncertainty, unpredictability, and unstable times. ~ Jennifer Touma

Acid is not for every brain ... Only the healthy, happy, wholesome, handsome, hopeful, humorous, high-velocity should seek these experiences. This elitism is totally self-determined. Unless you are self-confident, self-directed, self-selected, please abstain. ~ Timothy Leary

And of the sixth day yet remained
There wanted yet the master work, the end
Of all yet done: a creature who not prone
And brute as other creatures but endued
With sanctity of reason might erect
His stature and, upright with front serene,
Govern the rest, self-knowing, and from thence
Magnanimous to correspond with Heaven,
But grateful to acknowledge whence his good
Descends, thither with heart and voice and eyes
Directed in devotion to adore
And worship God supreme who made him chief
Of all His works. ~ John Milton

Pain, brought anger, anger brought rage, aimless rage, self-directed rage. An avalanche of 'if onlys' and a torrent of 'what ifs' assaulted his mind. Images and thoughts to torture and torment him, should he ever attempt to sleep again, seared and burnt into his brain by the heat of the ruined house. Scars to last a lifetime, however long that was. ~ G.R. Matthews

The practice of that which is ethically best - what we call goodness or virtue - involves a course of conduct which, in all respects, is opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence. In place of ruthless self-assertion it demands self-restraint; in place of thrusting aside, or treading down, all competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect, but shall help his fellows ... It repudiates the gladiatorial theory of existence ... Laws and moral precepts are directed to the end of curbing the cosmic process. ~ Thomas Henry Huxley

One bad thing can often be rectified or overlooked, but several of them can sometimes coalesce into a compound disaster that sprouts tentacles and develops a self-directed will of its own, the kind of thing my dear old dad used to call a cluster fudge bar. ~ Eleanor Druse

One of the causes of unhappiness among intellectuals in the present day is that so many of them, especially those whose skill is literary, find no opportunity for the independent exercise of their talents, but have to hire themselves out to rich corporations directed by Philistines, who insist upon their producing what they themselves regard as pernicious nonsense. If you were to inquire among journalists in either England or America whether they believed in the policy of the newspaper for which they worked, you would find, I believe, that only a small minority do so; the rest, for the sake of a livelihood, prostitute their skill to purposes which they believe to be harmful. Such work cannot bring any real satisfaction, and in the course of reconciling himself to the doing of it, a man has to make himself so cynical that he can no longer derive whole-hearted satisfaction from anything whatever. I cannot condemn men who undertake work of this sort, since starvation is too serious an alternative, but I think that where it is possible to do work that is satisfactory to man's constructive impulses without entirely starving, he will be well advised from the point of view of his own happiness if he chooses it in preference to work much more highly paid but not seeming to him worth doing on its own account. Without self-respect genuine happiness is scarcely possible. And the man who is ashamed of his work can hardly achieve self-respect. ~ Bertrand Russell

Unless we realize that the present market society, structured around the brutally competitive imperative of "grow or die," is a thoroughly impersonal, self-operating mechanism, we will falsely tend to blame technology as such or population growth as such for environmental problems. We will ignore their root causes, such as trade for profit, industrial expansion, and the identification of "progress" with corporate self-interest. In short, we will tend to focus on the symptoms of a grim social pathology rather than on the pathology itself, and our efforts will be directed toward limited goals whose attainment is more cosmetic than curative. ~ Murray Bookchin

Concentration is not thinking of one thing. On the contrary, it is excluding all thoughts, since all thoughts obstruct the sense of one's true being. All efforts are to be directed simply to removing the veil of ignorance. Concentrating the mind solely on the Self will lead to happiness or bliss. Drawing in the thoughts, restraining them and preventing them from straying outwards is called detachment (vairagya). Fixing them in the Self is spiritual practice (sadhana). Concentrating on the heart is the same as concentrating on the Self. Heart is another name for Self. ~ Ramana Maharshi

I tried to point out that it's not a gimmick to teach patients suffering with OCD that their intrusive thoughts and urges are caused by brain imbalances, and that we now know they can physically alter those imbalances through mindfulness and self-directed behavioral therapy techniques. ~ Jeffrey M. Schwartz

I knew that I wanted to follow their example and become a teacher who would help students become self-directed learners. ~ Bell Hooks

That 99 of compulsive thinkers' thinking is about themselves that 99 of this self-directed thinking consists of imagining and then getting ready for things that are going to happen to them and then weirdly that if they stop to think about it that 100 of the things they spend 99 of their time and energy imagining and trying to prepare for all the contingencies and consequences are never good. Then that this connects interestingly with the early-sobriety urge to pray for the literal loss of one's mind. In short that 99 of the head's thinking activity consists of trying to scare the everliving shit out of itself. ~ David Foster Wallace

Humanity had to inflict terrible injuries on itself before the self, the identical, purpose-directed, masculine character of human beings was created, and something of this process is repeated in every childhood. ~ Theodor Adorno

Companies that were paying attention understood they were witnessing the birth of the "self-directed consumer", because the internet and all the other tools for the flat world had created a means for every consumer to customize exactly the price, experience, and service he or she wanted. ~ Thomas L. Friedman

Yoga is about the will, working with intelligence and self-reflexive consciousness, can free us from the inevitability of the wavering mind and outwardly directed senses. ~ B.K.S. Iyengar

The will and self are ultimately dynamic, they are their actions. This energy can be trained and directed, tuned like an orchestra. It is not a matter of a "rational interior" that poses a problem for a decorator, rather a feng-shui intelligence is called for that orients the "house" to the flow of life that takes place in it (I rather suspect this is turned on its head in most cases of feng-shui, i.e. Americans capitulate once again to "experts"). ~ Kenny Smith

To recap, Motivation 2.0 suffers from three compatibility problems. It doesn't mesh with the way many new business models are organizing what we do - because we're intrinsically motivated purpose maximizers, not only extrinsically motivated profit maximizers. It doesn't comport with the way that twenty-first-century economics thinks about what we do - because economists are finally realizing tht we're full-fledged human beings, not single-minded economic robots. And perhaps most important, it's hard to reconcile with much of what we actually do at work - because for growing numbers of people, work is often creative, interesting, and self-directed rather than routine, boring and other-directed. Taken together, these compatibility problems warn us that something's gone awry in our motivational operating system. ~ Daniel H. Pink

If we live a self-directed, self-motivated, self-centered life, always needing to get our own way, then we're going to be miserable. In fact, many times we believe it's our problems that are making us unhappy when, in reality, it's because we're focused on ourselves! ~ Joyce Meyer

He sat thus, lost in meditation, thinking Om, his soul as the arrow directed at Brahman. ~ Hermann Hesse

The sinners to whom Jesus directed His messianic ministry were not those who skipped morning devotions or Sunday church. His ministry was to those whom society considered real sinners. They had done nothing to merit salvation. Yet they opened themselves to the gift that was offered them. On the other hand, the self-righteous placed their trust in the works of the Law and closed their hearts to the message of grace. ~ Brennan Manning

The other mind entity is what we call the impartial observer. This mind of present-moment awareness stands outside the preprogrammed physiological determinants and is alive to the present. It works through the brain but is not limited to the brain. It may be dormant in many of us, but it is never completely absent. It transcends the automatic functioning of past-conditioned brain circuits. 'In the end,...I conclude that there is no good evidence… that the brain alone can carry out the work that the mind does."
Knowing oneself comes from attending with compassionate curiosity to what is happening within.
Methods for gaining self-knowledge and self-mastery through conscious awareness strengthen the mind's capacity to act as its own impartial observer. Among the simplest and most skilful of the meditative techniques taught in many spiritual traditions is the disciplined practice of what Buddhists call 'bare attention'. Nietzsche called Buddha 'that profound physiologist' and his teachings less a religion than a 'kind of hygiene'...' Many of our automatic brain processes have to do with either wanting something or not wanting something else – very much the way a small child's mental life functions. We are forever desiring or longing, or judging and rejecting. Mental hygiene consists of noticing the ebb and flow of all those automatic grasping or rejecting impulses without being hooked by then. Bare attention is directed not only toward what's happening on the outside, ~ Gabor Mate

Achievement of any kind is the crown of effort,the diadem of thought.By the aid of self-control, resolution, purity, righteousness, and well-directed thought a man ascends.By the aid of animality,indolence,impurity,corruption,and confusion of thought a man descends. ~ James Allen

Love is a many-sided sacrifice; it means thoughtfulness for others; it means putting their good before self-gratification. Love is impulse, no doubt, but true love is impulse wisely directed. ~ Hugh Reginald Haweis

The rewards are profound. Shadow-work enables us to alter our self-sabotaging behavior so that we can achieve a more self-directed life. ~ Connie Zweig

Easter is a marvelous affirmation of the genius of our design, but it is likewise the blunt acknowledgement that left to its own devices, the genius of our design will result in the destruction of our lives. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

I have never met a truly strong person who didn't have self-respect. I think a lot of inwardly and outwardly directed contempt passes itself off as self-respect: the idea of raising yourself by stepping on someone's shoulders instead of doing it yourself. When I see guys working out for cosmetic reasons, I see vanity exposing them in the worst way, as cartoon characters, billboards for imbalance and insecurity. Strength reveals itself through character. - The Iron ~ Henry Rollins

She [Mary Maclane] is almost always referred to as "confessional." She has been referred to, several times, as the first blogger. Whereas her writing does not confess much - it is much more spiritual memoir than anything, or perhaps something akin to a mystic's courtly love, directed at the self. I am wondering what distinguishes writing as confessional…

I keep on feeling I prefer the latter-day MacLane, the diary she wrote while convalescing from scarlet fever back home in Butte, Montana, I, Mary MacLane, that Melville House is only publishing as an ebook. Mary MacLane melancholy, totally isolated. Feeling intense disquiet. Now in her early thirties, meditating on her whirlwind celebrity, in cities, feeling distanced from all that, but longing for it too. Obsessed with the Mary MacLane who stopped writing, or stopped publishing books, who was involved with the anarchist/bohemian crowd in Chicago, with the Dill Pickle, who died in poverty and obscurity on the South Side at the age of 48. I want to write about her, but I don't know how or why yet. ~ Kate Zambreno

If the people in our congregation become other-directed instead of self-directed in the adoption of unwanted children, they are going to be other-directed instead of self-directed in their verbal witness to people in their community. On the other hand, the same self-interest that sears over the joy of birth will sear over the joy of the new birth. The numbness to earthly adoption is easily translated to numbness to spiritual adoption. But if people in our churches learn not to grumble at the blessing of minivans filled with children - some of whom don't look anything alike - they're going to learn not to grumble at the blessing of a congregation filling with new people, some of whom don't look anything alike. If our churches learn to rejoice in newness of life in the church nursery, they'll more easily rejoice at newness of life in the church baptistery, and vice versa. ~ Russell D. Moore

I have spent a great deal of my life during the past thirty-five years advocating the rights of the Palestinian people to national self-determination, but I have always tried to do that with full attention paid to the reality of the Jewish people and what they suffered by the way of persecution and genocide. The paramount thing is that the struggle for equality in Palestine/Israel should be directed toward a humane goal, that is, coexistence, and not further suppression and denial. Not accidentally, I indicate that Orientalism and modern anti-Semitism have common roots. Therefore, it would seem to be a vital necessity for independent intellectuals always to provide alternative models to the reductively simplifying and confining ones, based on mutual hostility, that have prevailed in the Middle East and elsewhere for so long. ~ Edward W. Said

Persistence is useful if you are trying to learn a new skill or acquire particular knowledge...but persistence directed primarily toward your non-talents is self-destructive. ~ Gallup Press

In these times of self-directed teams, empowered employees, and "boundaryless" organizations, your worth as an individual employee will also get measured by your work group's collective results. ~ Price Pritchett

The issue is whether we want to live in a free society or whether we want to live under what amounts to a form of self-imposed totalitarianism, with the bewildered herd marginalized, directed elsewhere, terrified, screaming patriotic slogans, fearing for their lives, and admiring with awe the leader who saved them from destruction, while the educated masses goose-step on command and repeat the slogans they're supposed to repeat and the society deteriorates at home. ~ Noam Chomsky

How defeated and restless the child that is not doing something in which it sees a purpose, a meaning! It is by its self-directed activity that the child, as years pass, finds its work, the thing it wants to do and for which it finally is willing to deny itself pleasure, ease, even sleep and comfort. ~ Ida Tarbell