Jerome Bruner will always be remembered for being the driving force behind the Cognitive Revolution This psychologist, born in the United States in 1915 and died in 2016, was one of the main figures in behavioral science in the 20th century.
Doctor from Harvard, he outlined a line of research that directly opposed the behavioral theses of BF Skinner, John B. Watson and others, developing his cognitive theory.
Phrases and thoughts by Jerome Bruner
Highly inspired by the works of Jean Piaget, Bruner also theorized about human learning, creating his theory of learning models.
In this article we are going to get to know Jerome Bruner a little more through several famous quotes and phrases that will allow us to get closer to the work of this phenomenal researcher.
1. It is easier for you to activate your feelings than for them to make you take action.
The directionality of feelings and their influence on our daily lives.
2. Education is not only the transmission of culture, but also a provider of alternative visions of the world and a strengthener of the will to explore them.
Critical thinking is one of the fundamental keys to learning. Without exploration there is no reflection.
3. “We must prevent students from getting bored in schools”
In an interesting interview that Bruner gave to El País, the North American psychologist explained several keys about how schools should teach to love knowledge.
4. I believe in a school that not only teaches children what we know about the world, but also teaches them to think about possibilities.
An education based on utopia, creativity and progress.
5. Do children learn religion? I have a very Anglo-Saxon mentality, I believe in the separation between Church and State.
About secularism in schools. His vision is clear and clear.
6. Both here and everywhere, in addition to debate, education needs funds. It needs investment.
A realistic phrase about education in the 21st century.
7. The essence of creativity is to use the knowledge we already have to try to go one step further.
About his conception of creativity.
8. Students should be encouraged to discover the world and relationships for themselves.
Learning and laissez-faire as the key to enhancing the pristine curiosity of each child.
9. We are “storytellers” beings, and as children we acquire a language to explain these stories that we carry inside us.
An interesting vision about why human beings communicate with a high degree of complexity, through language.
10. “Thinking about thinking” must be the main ingredient for any empowering educational practice.
Metacognition teaches us to evaluate our thoughts and access higher levels of wisdom.
11. Learning is a process, not a product.
We never stop learning and reformulating our thoughts through sensory and psychic experience.
12. A child tackling a new problem is like a scientist researching at the edge of his natural field of study.
Outside the cognitive comfort zone we are all driven to find new and better ways to approach problems and solve the unknowns.
13. The fish will be the last to discover the water.
An idea that refers us to the idea of ubiquity: what surrounds us, sometimes, is precisely what goes unnoticed by us the most.
14. Good teachers always work at the limit of the students’ competencies.
Stimulating new competencies and skills is based on this principle described in this phrase by Jerome Bruner.
15. Understanding something in one way does not make it impossible for it to be understood in other different ways.
Perhaps it may sound obvious, but Jerome Bruner is responsible for reminding us that reality does not only have one reading.
16. The main characteristic of the game (both in adults and children) is not the content but the mode. In other words, play is a way of approaching an activity, not the activity itself.
A thought from Jerome Bruner that can make us reflect.
17. Knowledge is only useful when it is transformed into concrete habits.
If knowledge is not transported to daily activity, it is of little use.
18. There is a universal truth about human cognition: the ability to deal with knowledge is exceeded by the potential knowledge that remains in our environment. To cope with this diversity, human perception, memory and cognitive processes are governed by strategies that protect our limited capacity so that we are not overwhelmed by thousands of stimuli provided by the environment.
We tend to perceive things in a systematic and prototypical way: this helps us understand and generalize, and therefore survive in a highly complex world.