William Damon > Quotes

“One of the most intriguing ideas in the developmental sciences over the past decades is the phenomenon of the “J-shaped curve.”19 While observing children learning to master new skills in dozens of domains (math, writing, the arts), psychologists noticed a surprising pattern: as a learner struggles to master difficult new challenges, there is often an initial decline in skill. Errors are made on tasks that previously seemed easy, and the learner feels more “stupid” than ever before. This is the dip that forms the middle part of the “J.” But it turns out that the “stupid mistakes,” in retrospect, were nothing more than growth errors. Once the learner gets past the dip, performance rises rapidly to new heights.”
― William Damon, The Path to Purpose: Helping Our Children Find Their Calling in Life

“Life, much like so many athletic events, is largely a game of recovery.”
― William Damon, The Path to Purpose: Helping Our Children Find Their Calling in Life

“Here is the sequence of steps we have identified in achieving a path of purpose: Inspiring communication with persons outside the immediate family Observation of purposeful people at work First moment of revelation: something important in the world can be corrected or”
― William Damon, The Path to Purpose: Helping Our Children Find Their Calling in Life

“The regular public schools ... have become more secular ... and more value-free. The education profession's cherished "progressivism" is part of the reason. And the close scrutiny of fierce watchdog groups ... has made schools and educators gun-shy. In recent years, however, perhaps the strongest influences have been postmodern relativism and multiculturalism, which first trickled, then gushed from university campuses into primary and secondary school classrooms. If scholars, teachers, and those who train them abjure fixed distinctions between right and wrong, if all judgments are said to depend upon one's unique perspective or background rather than universal standards of truth, beauty, or virtue, if every form of family, society, and polity is deemed equal to all other forms, and if every group's mores and values must be taught ... who is there (in school) to help children determine what it means to be an American, how to behave, and what to believe?”
― William Damon, Failing Liberty 101: How We Are Leaving Young Americans Unprepared for Citizenship in a Free Society