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Christian Home Education Support for Christian homeschoolers in South Africa, Australia and the United Kingdom
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Roland
Joined: 20 Jun 2002 Posts: 28
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Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2002 5:02 pm Post subject: Quotes about Homeschooling and Education |
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I
thought I would test the collaborative side this forum by collecting as
many quotes about homeschooling as possible, please assist me by
contributing as many qoutes as possible about homeschooling.
Quotes about Homeschooling and Education
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"Parents have a natural and inalienable right to educate their
children, publicly and privately, as they see fit, and that right
should be recognized and encouraged." -- Ronald Reagan, President of
the United States
"Parents are their children's first and most influential teachers.
What parents do to help their children learn is more important to
academic success than how well off the family is." -- U.S. Department
of Education, What Works: Research About Teaching and Learning
"Parents should choose the form of education they want for their children."
-- William Bennett, Former Secretary of Education
"My grandmother wanted me to get an education, so she kept me out of school." --Margaret Mead
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." --Mark Twain
"What is most important and valuable about the home as a base for
children's growth into the world is not that it is a better school than
the schools, but that it isn't a school at all." --John Holt
"Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself." --John Dewey
"If the schools were perfect, I would still homeschool my
children--because it isn't about school. It's about families taking
their children back and educating them as they see best. It's about
giving birth to a child and loving that child
enough to want to nurture him and be a part of his life until he no
longer needs you. It is the natural thing to do. School is only a
substitute for the real thing." --Kathleen McCurdy
"An educational system isn't worth a great deal if it teaches young
people how to make a living but doesn't teach them how to make a life."
--Author unknown
"The experience of homeschooling is as much about adults uncovering
the shimmering, infinite quality of learning itself as it is about kids
absorbing knowledge." --Eileen Fisher, Editor, EdPress Online
"The truth is that schools don't really teach anything except how
to obey orders." --John Taylor Gatto, NY City and State Teacher of the
Year.
"There is, on the whole, nothing on earth intended for innocent people so horrible as a school." --George Bernard Shaw
"A life worth living and work worth doing -- that is what I want
for children (and all people), not just, or not even, something called
a better education." --John Holt
"In general the best teacher or care-giver cannot match a parent of even ordinary education and experience." --Dr. Raymond Moore
"Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is." --Isaac Asimov
"Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on
the mind. Let early education be a sort of amusement; this will better
enable you to find out the natural bent of the child." --Plato
"I believe that school makes complete fools of our young men, because
they see and hear nothing of ordinary life there." --Petronius
Satyricon
"It is... nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of
instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of
inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands
mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wreak and ruin. It
is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and
searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty."
--Albert Einstein
"Just as eating against one's will is injurious to health, so study
without a liking for it spoils the memory, and it retains nothing it
takes in." --Leonardo Da Vinci |
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Roland
Joined: 20 Jun 2002 Posts: 28
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Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2002 6:19 am Post subject: more quotes |
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EDUCATION OR SCHOOLING
"My schooling not only failed to teach me what it professed to be
teaching, but prevented me from being educated to an extent which
infuriates me when I think of all I might have learned at home by myself".
-- George Bernard Shaw
"I never allowed schooling to interfere with my education". Mark Twain
"When I came back from the morning (of his first day at school), my
mother asked what I had learned. I said, 'I really didn't learn anything'.
I sat at the back of the class, and there was a little window high up
on the wall, through which I could see branches. I hoped that a bird
would alight. No bird alighted, but I kept hoping, and that's about
all I could report. So my mother promptly said, 'Well, we'll educate
you at home". -- Yehudi Menuhin |
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Lydia
Joined: 20 Jun 2002 Posts: 1
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Posted: Tue Sep 03, 2002 5:38 am Post subject: more quotes and thoughts about homeschool, home education |
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Thoughts and Quotes
" I suppose it is because nearly all children go to school nowadays and
have things arranged for them that they seem so forlornly unable to
produce their own ideas. "
--Agatha Christie
" We're not trying to do "School at Home." We're trying to do
homeschool. These are two entirely different propositions. We're not
trying to replicate the time, style or content of the classroom. Rather
we're trying to cultivate a lifestyle of learning in which learning
takes place from morning until bedtime 7 days each week. The "formal"
portion of each teaching day is just the tip of the iceburg. "
--Steve and Jane Lambert ( Five In A Row )
"Architect Frank Lloyd Wright told how a lecture he received at the
age of nine helped set his philosophy of life: An uncle, a stolid
no-nonsense type, had taken him for a long walk across a snow-covered
field. At the far side, his uncle told him to look back at their two
sets of tracks.
"See, my boy," he said, "how your foot prints go aimlessly back
and forth from those trees, to the cattle back to the fence and then
over there where you where throwing sticks? But notice how MY path
comes straight across, directly to my goal. You should never forget
this lesson!"
"And I never did," Wright said, grinning. "I determined right then not to miss most things in life, as my uncle had."
" School is the advertising agency which makes you believe that you need the society as it is. "
--Ivan Illich in "Deschooling Society" 1970
" I don't want my children fed or clothed by the state, but I would prefer that to their being educated by the state. "
-- Max Victor Belz ( The Separation of School & State Alliance )
" To confuse compulsory schooling with equal educational opportunity is
like confusing organized religion with spirituality. One does not
necessarily lead to the other. Schooling confuses teaching with
learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence,
and fluency with the ability to say something new. "
-- Wendy Priesnitz
" Parents give up their rights when they drop the children off at public school. "
-- Melinda Harmon, Federal Judge, 1996
" Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. "
-- William Butler Yeats
" What we want to see is the child in pursuit of knowledge, not knowledge in pursuit of the child. "
-- George Bernard Shaw
" I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of
education. They seem to me to be built upon the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must taught to think. Whereas if the child
is left to himself, he will think more and better, if less slowly. Let
him come and go freely, let him touch real things and combine his
impressions for himself, instead of sitting indoors at a little round
table while a sweet-voiced teacher suggest that he build a stone wall
with his wooden blocks, or make a rainbow out of strips of colored
paper, or plant straw trees in flower pots. Such teaching fills the
mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of before the child can develop independent ideas out of actual experiences. "
-- Anne Sullivan
" Great spirits have always been violently oppressed by mediocre minds. "
-- Albert Einstein
" Teaching does not make learning --- organized education operates on
the assumption that children learn only when and only what and only
because we teach them. This is not true. It is very close to 100%
false. Learners make learning. "
-- Education Reformer John Holt
" I sometimes ask myself how it came about that I was the one to
develop the theory of relativity. The reason, I think, is that a normal
adult never stops to think about problems of space and time. These are
things which he has thought about as a child.
But my intellectual development was retarded, as a result of which I
began to wonder about space and time only when I had already grown up.
"
-- Albert Einstein
" Homeschooling and public schooling are as opposite as two sides
of a coin. In a homeschooling environment, the teacher need not be
certified, but the child MUST learn. In a public school environment, the teacher MUST be certified, but the child need NOT learn."
-- Gene Royer
" It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of
instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiousity of
inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands
mainly in need of freedom. "
-- Albert Einstein
" Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. "
-- Roger Lewin
" I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn."
-- Albert Einstein
" A tax supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state."
-- Isabel Patterson, The God of the Machine
" When you want to teach children to think, you begin by treating
them seriously when they are little, giving them responsibilities,
talking to them candidly, providing privacy and solitude for them, and
making them readers and thinkers of significant thoughts from the
beginning. That's if you want to teach them to think."
--Bertrand Russell
" What is most important and valuable about the home as a base for
children's growth into the world is not that it is a better school than
the schools, but that it isn't a school at all."
--John Holt
" The idea is to educate, not follow anyone's schedule about when something should be studied. "
--Ray Drouillard
" The only purpose of education is to teach a student how to live
his life-by developing his mind and equipping him to deal with reality.
The training
he needs is theoretical, i.e., conceptual. He has to be taught to
think, to understand, to integrate, to prove. He has to be taught the
essentials of the knowledge discovered in the past-and he has to be
equipped to acquire further knowledge by his own effort. "
--Ayn Rand
Extracted from:
http://home-educate.com/quotes.shtml
Last edited by Lydia on Wed Sep 04, 2002 2:05 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Roland
Joined: 20 Jun 2002 Posts: 28
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Posted: Wed Sep 04, 2002 7:19 am Post subject: |
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The
immediate case against compulsory school for adolescents is quite
simply their barbarity: it is a triangle of hatred, humiliation and
contempt. -- Frank Musgrove
"The principle goal of education is to create men who are
capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what
other generations have done." -- Jean Piaget
"Before there were television and video games, kids used
to play outdoors, entertain themselves and work around the
house in the afternoons. Kids don't choose television over
people. They choose television because of lack of people
interaction." -- Brook Noel
"An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."
--Benjamin Franklin {1706-1790 American Founding Father & Scientist}
"When freedom prevails, the ingenuity and inventiveness of
people creates incredible wealth. This is the source of the
natural improvement of the human condition."
-- Brian S. Wesbury {American Economist}
"The illiterate of the future are not those that cannot read or
write. They are those that can not learn, unlearn, relearn."
--Alvin Toffler {American Author}
What is most important and valuable about the home as a base for children's growth
into the world is not that it is a better school than the schools, but that it isn't a school at all.
--John Holt
"Parents and families are the first and most important teachers.
If families teach a love of learning, it can make all the difference in the world to our children."
--Richard W. Riley, U.S. Secretary of Education
For me, home education has been a terrific journey away from static forms of learning,
institutional hoops to jump through, forms to please others, and a journey into a magical world
of wonder and discovery. Not relaxing, but certainly an exciting process.
--Val, California homeschool mom
"One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind, whether one liked
it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect that, after I had
passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any
scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year...... It is in
fact nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction
have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of enquiry; for this
delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of
freedom; without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail. It is a
very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching
can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. To the
contrary, I believe that it would be possible to rob even a healthy
beast of prey of its voraciousness, if it were possible, with the aid
of a whip, to force the beast to devour continuously, even when not
hungry - especially if the food, handed out under such coercion, were
to be selected accordingly."
--Albert Einstein
Thats my own concept of my job - Arming her with the tools she needs
to succeed on her own, and making course corrections along the way.
When you think about it - if I taught my daughter only what I knew,
no matter how knowledgable I was - I'd be limiting her severely.
--Joan Taylor, homeschool mom |
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Roland
Joined: 20 Jun 2002 Posts: 28
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Posted: Wed Sep 04, 2002 1:46 pm Post subject: Learning quotes |
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"The
home is the first and most effective place to learn the lessons of
life: truth, honor, virtue, self control, the value of education,
honest work, and the purpose and privilege of life. Nothing can take
the place of home in rearing and teaching children, and no other
success can compensate for failure in the home." -- David O. McKay,
President of LDS Homeschooling in California
"Some children are not ready to go to school at five as their
motor, social and cognitive skills are not sufficiently developed. "
--Clinical Psychologist Dr Paula Barret from Griffith University, Queensland
"The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education, but the means to an education."
--Emerson
"How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it."
--Alexandre Dumas
"If the schooling system does not rapidly close the gap between what it
does, and what it should do in response to the demands of the 21st
century, it will simply become irrelevant."
--David Hood (Our Secondary Schools Don't Work Anymore - 1998)
"Accepting the key premise that the learner is the primary customer of
schooling means others follow naturally. ... The core business of
schooling is learning, and the quality of learning experienced by all
learners should be the standard against which performance is measured."
--David Hood (Our Secondary Schools Don't Work Anymore - 1998)
"I suppose it is because nearly all children go to school nowadays, and
have things arranged for them, that they seem so forlornly unable to
produce their own ideas."
--Agatha Christie
"...the truth is mothers - and fathers - exert far more influence over
their children's intellectual development than is commonly realised. In
fact, more than three decades of research shows that families have
greater influence over a child's academic performance than any other factor - including schools."
--Family Research Council, "The One-House Schoolroom" (Sept 1995 issue of "Family Policy")
"The child
must think, get at the reason-why of things for himself, every day of
his life, and more each day than the day before. Children and paents
both are given to invert this educational process. The child asks "Why?" and the parent answers, rather proud of this evidence of thought in his child.There
is some slight show of speculation even in wondering "Why?" but it is
the slightest and most superficial effort the thinking brain produces.
Let the parent ask "Why?" and the child
produce the answer, if he can. After he has turned the matter over in
his mind, there is no harm in telling him - and he will remember it -
the reason why. Every walk should offer some knotty problem for the
children to think out - "Why does that leaf float on the water, and
this pebble sink?" and so on."
--Charlotte Mason, "Home education" (1935)
"Education has for its object the formation of character."
--Herbert Spencer (1820 - 1903)
"Public schools are the nurseries of all vice and immorality."
--Henry Fielding (1707 - 1754)
"When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes"
--Erasmus
"Education is not the filling of a bucket, rather, the lighting of a fire."
--William Butler Yeats
"Bless me, what *do* they teach them at these schools?
--CS Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe
"All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education."
--Sir Walter Scott
"Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln
never saw a movie, heard a radio or looked at television. They had
loneliness and they knew what to do with it. They were not afraid of
being lonely because they knew that was when the creative mood in the
would work."
--Carl Sandburg
"Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing. The rest is mere sheep herding."
--Ezra Loomis Pound
"I'm sure the reason such young nitwits are produced in our schools is
because they have no contact with anything of any use in everyday
life."
--Petronius
"The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education."
--Paul Karl Feyerabend
"Education is helping the child realise his potentialities."
-Eric Fromm
"My idea of education is to unsettle the minds of the young and inflame their intellects."
--Robert Maynard Hutchins
"The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives."
--Robert Maynard Hutchins
"The secret of education is respecting the pupil."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Try not to have a good time ... This is supposed to be educational."
--Charles Schulz
"Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion has no hold on the mind.
Therefore do not use compulsion, but let early education be rather a
sort of amusement; this will better enable you to find out the natural
bent of the child."
--Plato
"Education ... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading."
--G. M. Trevelyan
"I have no patience with the stupidity of the average teacher of
grammar who wastes precious years in hammering rules into children's
heads. For it is not by learning rules that we acquire the powers of
speaking a language, but by daily intercourse with those accustomed to
express themselves with exactness and refinement and by copious reading
of the best authors."
--Erasmus, Reformation theologian and teacher
"Our aim in education is to give a full life. We owe it to them to
initiate an immense number of interests. Life should be all living, and
not merely a tedious passing of time; not all doing or all feeling or
all thinking - the strain would be too great - but, all living; that is
to say, we should be in touch wherever we go, whatever we hear,
whatever we see, with some manner of vital interest."
--Charlotte Mason
"The problem with many materials for children is that they 'talk down'
to the kids. Like many other home school parents, Michael and I have
found that you do not need to talk down to your children in order to
effectively teach them. In fact, they seem to respond better when they
are given a bit of a challenge. Nor does artwork need to betray good
taste in order to be captivating. As parents, we should strive to
provide a nurturing environment that will help our children develop
both a critical mind for detecting truth and a critical eye for
appreciating beauty..."
--Susan and Michael Card "The Homeschool Journey, Windows into the Heart of a Learning Family"
"we prefer that they [the children] should never say they have learned
botany or conchology, geology or astronomy. The question is not, - how
much does the youth know when he has finished his education - but how
much does he care and about how many orders of things does he care?"
--Charlotte Mason
"Education is an admirable thing, but nothing that is worth knowing can be taught."
--Oscar Wilde
"The newer and broader picture [of language development] suggests that the child
emerges into literacy by actively speaking, reading and writing in the
context of real life, not through filling out phonics worksheets or
memorising [lists of look-say] words."
--Thomas Armstong, Ph.D.,"Awakening Your Child's Natural Genius" (1991)
"We have never been so rich in books. But there has never been a
generation when there is so much twaddle in print for children."
--Charlotte Mason,"Home Education" (1935)
"If I were to label much educational material today, I'm afraid a large
percentage would definitely be twaddle. How colourfully and
scientifically our generation talks down to the little child! What insipid, stupid, dull stories are trotted out!'
--Susan Schaeffer MacAuley,"For the Children's Sake" (1984)
"A love of reading is an acquired taste, not an instinctive preference. The habit of reading is formed in childhood; and a child's
taste in reading is formed in the right direction or in the wrong one
while he is under the influence of his parents; and they are directly
responsible for the shaping and cultivating of that taste."
--H. Clay Trumbull,"Hints on Child Training" (1890)
"The truly educated person has only had many doors opened. He
knows that life will not be long enough to follow everything through
fully."
--Susan Schaeffer MacAuley,"For the Children's Sake" (1984)
"The purpose of education and the schools is to change the thoughts, feelings and actions of students."
--Prof. Benjamin Bloom,"father of OBE" (Outcome Based Education)
"In the year 2000 an illiterate person will not be someone who can't
read or write, but someone who is not able to learn, unlearn and learn
again."
--Alvin Toffler
"Instruction, and advice, and commands will profit little, unless they
are backed up by the pattern of your own life. Your children will never
believe you are in earnest, and really wish them to obey you, so long
as your actions contradict your counsel... Think not your children will
practise what they do not see you do. You are their model picture, and
they will copy what you are... will seldom learn habits which they see
you despise, or walk in paths in which you do not walk yourself."
--J.C. Ryle, "The Upper Room" (1888)
"It has been said that the essence of teaching is causing another to know. It may similarly be said that the essence of training is causing another to do. Teaching gives knowledge. Training gives skill. Teaching fills the mind. Training shapes the habits. Teaching brings to the child that which he did not have before. Training enables a child to make use of that which is already his possession."
--H. Clay Trumbull, "Hints on child training" (1890)
"I have prevented my kids from watching MTV at home. It's not safe for kids."
--Tom Freston, President of MTV
"I didn't even dream it would be so good. But I would never let my children come close to the thing."
--Vladimir Zworykin, agd 92 on his invention, the television
"Keep children as much as possible by themselves ... keep them from
company, good or bad. ... It will be generally found that the most
virtuous and the most intellectual, are those who have been brought up
with few companions. ... in fact his mental resources may be considered
entirely unknown and unexplored, who cannot spend his best and happiest
hours alone."
Jacob Abbott (1850)
"For all the most important things in education we have an inside
track, since we reckon with the whole person, including heart and
soul."
--Ruth Beechick, "A Biblical Psychology of Learning" (1982)
"He who knows how to teach a child is not competent for the oversight of a child's education unless he also knows how to train a child."
--H Clay Trumbull, "Hints on child training" (1890)
"To paraphrase, "No home schooling family is an island unto
itself." Whether you want to be or not, you and your children are
public relations representatives for the home schooling movement. ...
Your good example can do more to promote the good reputation of home
schooling than any other factor."
--Clay and Sally Clarkson, "Educating the whole hearted child" <bkclarks.htm> (1996)
"In general the best teacher or care-giver cannot match a parent of even ordinary education and experience."
--Dr Raymond Moore, "Home Grown Kids" (1981)
"Concerns that homeschooled children are marginalised in terms of
opportunities for socialisation are generally addressed by
homeschooling parents and homeschool support groups through the
provision of additional social activities. Not one report in this study
suggested that a greater emphasis on social interactions would be
beneficial."
--ERO, "The quality of home schooling" <http://www.ero.govt.nz/educatio/homesch-2.htm> (1998)
"Research clearly verifies that the more people there are around your
children, the less opportunity they have for the meaningful social
contact ... Psychologists have found, as many parents know
instinctively, that peaceful solitude is necessary for mental health
and that the less cluttered your childrens routine, the more secure
they will be."
--Dr Raymond Moore, "Home Style Teaching" (1984)
"Research ... reveals a significant advantage in social development for
home schooled children. they are socially adept, possess a positive
self-image, and are active in areas that devlop leadership skills.
Thomas Smedley, in a 1992 controlled study, concluded: `... the home
educated children in this sample were significantly better socialised
and more mature than those in public school.'"
--Dr Brian Ray, HSLDA (Marching to the beat of their own drum! A profile of home education research)
"I am much afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of hell,
unless they diligently labour in explaining the Holy Scriptures, and
engraving them in the hearts of youth. I advise no one to place his child
where the scriptures do not reign paramount. Every institution in which
means are not unceasingly occupied with the Word of God must be
corrupt."
--Martin Luther
"When we make our laws and educational policies primarily for the
parents who don't care, instead of for those who do, those laws are
backwards. We urge that the burden of proof be on the state to show
which mothers and fathers are not doing their job."
--Dr Raymond Moore, "Home Grown Kids" (1981)
"Therefore, teaching, talk and tale, however lucid or fascinating,
effect nothing until self-activity be set up; that is, self-education
is the only possible education; the rest is mere veneer laid on the
surface of a child's nature."
--Charlotte Mason
"He is educated who knows how to find out what he doesn't know."
--George Simmel, German Philosopher
"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink of it deeply, or taste
it not, for shallow thoughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking deeply
sobers us again."
--Alexander Pope
Extracted from:
http://www.home.school.nz/quotes.htm |
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Roland
Joined: 20 Jun 2002 Posts: 28
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Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2002 7:05 am Post subject: |
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...we have come to realise that for most men the right to learn is curtailed by the obligation to attend school --Ivan Illich
Schools are designed on the assumption that there is a secret to
everything in life; that the quality of life depends upon knowing that
secret; that secrets can only be known in orderly successions; and that
only teachers can properly reveal these secrets. An individual with a
schooled mind concieves of the world as a pyramid of classified
packages accessable only to those who carry the proper tags. --Ivan
Illich
When I trained as a teacher I was introduced to two basic roles. One
was that of a crowd control steward... The other basic role was that of
crowd-instructor --Meighan
A recent MORI poll, commissioned by the Campaign for Learning, found
that 90% of adults were favourably inclined towards further learning
for themselves.....The bad news is that 75% said they were unhappy and
alienated in the school environment and that, therefore, they preferred
to learn at home, in the local library, at their workplace - anywhere
other than a school-type setting. --Meighan
I say above all else don't let your home become [a] miniture copy of
the school. no lesson plans, no quizzes, no tests, no report cards!
even leaving your child
alone would be better; at least they would figure out some things on
their own. Live together as well as you can; enjoy life together as
much as you can. --Holt
It is hard not to feel that there must be something very wrong with
much of what we do in school, if we feel the need to worry so much
about what many people call 'motivation'. A child
has no stronger desire than to make sense of the world, to move freely
in it, to do the things that he sees bigger people doing. --Holt
How much people can learn at any moment depends on how they feel at
that moment about the task and their ability to do the task. When we
feel powerful and competent, we leap at difficult tasks. The difficulty
does not discourage us; we think:"Sooner or later, I'm going to get
this." At other times we can only think: "I'll never get this, it's too
hard for me, I never was any good at this kind of thing, why do I have
to do it," etc. Part of the art of teaching is being able to sense
which of these moods learners are in. People can go from one mood to
the other very quickly. --Holt
There are times when even the most skilful learner must admit to
himself that for the time being he is trying to butt his head through a
stone wall, and that there is no sense in it. At such times teachers
are inclined to use students as a kind of human battering ram. I've
done it too often myself. It doesn't work. --Holt
A word to the wise, or even the unwise, is infuriating because it
is insulting. When we teach without being asked, we are saying, in
effect, 'You're not smart enough to know that you should know this, and
not smart enough to learn it. --Holt
Most of us are tactful enough with other adults not to point out
their errors, but not many of us are ready to extend this courtesy (or
any other courtesy, for that matter) to children. --Holt
When they learn in their own way and for their own reasons,
children learn so much more rapidly and effectively than we could
possibly teach them, that we can afford to throw away our curricula and
our timetables, and set them free, at least most of the time, to learn
on their own. --Holt
What is essential is to realise that children learn independently,
not in bunches; that they learn out of interest and curiosity, not to
please or appease the adults in power; and that they ought to be in
control of their own learning, deciding for themselves what they want
to learn and how they want to learn it. --Holt
Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of facts. --Henry Adams
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet. --Aristotle
A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him. --James Baldwin
It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated. --Alec Bourne
Education makes people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave. --Henry Peter Broughan
Education is the period during which you are being instructed by
somebody you do not know, about something you do not want to know. --G
k Chesterton
There is one thing at least of which there is never so much as a
whisper inside the popular schools; and that is the opinion of the
people. The only persons who seem to have nothing to do with the
education of the children are the parents. --G k Chesterton
We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or
fifteen years, and come out at last with a bellyfull of words and do
not know a thing. --Ralph Waldo Emerson
The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education, but the means of education. --Ralph Waldo Emerson
Only the educated are free. --Epictetus
Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one. --Malcolm Forbes
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper. --Robert Frost
Education is hanging around until you've caught on. --Jonathan Kozol
More money is put into prisons than into schools. That, in itself, is
the description of a nation bent on suicide. I mean, what is more
precious to us than our own children? We are going to build a lot more
prisons if we do not deal with the schools and their inequalities.
--Jonathan Kozol
Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great
equaliser of the conditions of man, - the balance-wheel of the social
machinery. --Horace Mann
School days are the unhappiest in the whole span if human existence.
They are full of dull, unintelligible tasks, new and unpleasant
ordinances, with brutal violations of common sense and common decency.
--H. L. Mencken
Education is a method whereby one acquires a higher grade of prejudices. --Laurence Peter
Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education. --Bertrand Russell
We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of
the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought. --Bertrand
Russell
The majority of parents feel affection for their children, and this
sets limits to the harm they do them. But education authorities have no
affection for the children concerned; at best, they are actuated by
public spirit, which is directed towards the community as a whole, and
not merely towards the children; at worst, they are politicians engaged
in squabbles for plums --Bertrand Russell
Another merit of home is that it preserves the diversity between
individuals. If we were all alike, it might be convenient for the
bureaucrat and the statistician, but it would be very dull, and would
lead to a very unprogressive society." --Bertrand Russell
An orchestra requires men with different talents and, within limits,
different tastes; if all men insisted upon playing the trombone,
orchestral music would be impossible. Social co-operation, in like
manner, requires differences of taste and aptitude, which are less
likely to exist if all children are exposed to the same influences than
if parental differences are allowed to affect them --Bertrand Russell
Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten. -B. F. Skinner
Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run. --Mark Twain
Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education. --Mark Twain
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." --Mark Twain
Theories and goals of education don't matter a whit if you do not consider your students to be human beings. --Lou Ann Walker
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time
to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. --Oscar Wilde
It is nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction
havenot yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this
delicatelittle plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of
freedom;without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail. --Albert
Einstein
He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my
contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the
spinal cord would suffice. --Albert Einstein
It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and
searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. To
the contrary, I believe it would be possible to rob even a healthy
beast of prey of its voraciousness, if it were possible, with the aid
of a whip, to force the beast to devour continuously, even when not
hungry, especially if the food handed out under such coercion were to
be selected accordingly. --Albert Einstein
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world --Albert Einstein
if a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because
he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears,
however measured or far away. --Thoreau
I have not done a full survey or review of education systems around
the world, so that the views I express are based on personal
experience. I would say that all education systems I've had contact
with are a disgrace and a disaster. --Edward de Bono
Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. --Heraclitus
The middle years should be so busy, so demanding, so active, so
adventurous that adolescents should barely have time for introspection.
--Michael Barber (Head of Standards and Effectiveness Unit of the Dfee)
Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and
the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more thanwe
can ever learn from books. --John Lubbock
their ability to see the point in learning the darn thing anyway, the
chances are that they will take in very little. --Jean Bendell
'School's Out'
It could be argued that teachers are the best people to teach our
children as they have been specially trained for this. But just as
equipment is only of vale if the child learns through its use - it has no worth otherwise - the qualifications of the teachers are of little value unless the child is actually learning. --Jean Bendell 'School's Out'
Children require guidance and sympathy far more than instruction. --Anne Sullivan (Helen Keller's teacher)
I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of
education. They seem to me to be built upon the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must taught to think. --Anne Sullivan (Helen Keller's teacher)
I believe that school makes complete fools of our young men, because
they see and hear nothing of ordinary life there. --Petronius
(Satyricon)
I have not the least doubt that school developed in me nothing but what was evil and left the good untouched. --Edward Grieg
The founding fathers in their wisdom decided that children were an
unnatural strain on parents, so they provided jails called schools,
equipped with tortures called education. School is where you go between
when your parents can't take you and industry can't take you. --John
Updike ( 'Connect' New York October 98 )
I learned most, not from those who taught me but from those who talked with me. --St. Augustine
Trying to get more learning out of the present system is like
trying to get the Pony express to compete with the telegraph by
breeding faster ponies. --Edward Fiske
I remember that I was never able to get along at school. I was always at the foot of the class. --Thomas Edison
What use is it to pile task on task and prolong the days of labour, if
at the close the chief object is left unattained? It is not the fault
of the teachers -- they work only too hard already. The combined folly
of a civilization that has forgotten its own roots is forcing them to
shore up the tottering weight of an educational structure that is built
upon sand. They are doing for their pupils the work which the pupils
themselves ought to do. For the sole true end of education is simply
this: to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever
instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain. --Dorothy L.
Sayers
There can be no education without leisure, and without leisure education is worthless. --Sarah Josepha Hale
Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other. --Edmund Burke
"I hated school so intensely. It interfered with my freedom. I avoided
the discipline by an elaborate technique of being absent-minded during
classes." --Sigrid Undset, writer and Nobel Laureate (Literature)
Education...has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading. --Trevelyan
Who does not recall school at least in part as endless dreary hours
of boredom punctuated by moments of high anxiety? --Daniel Goleman
'Emotional Intelligence'
The single most important contribution education can make to a child's
development is to help him towards a field where his talents best suit
him, where he will be satisfied and competent. We've completely lost
sight of that. Instead we subject everyone to an education where, if
you succeed, you will be best suited to be a college professor... And
we evaluate everyone along the way according to whether they meet that
narrow standard of success. We should spend less time ranking children
and more time helping them identify their natural competencies and
gifts, and cultivate those. There are hundreds and hundreds of ways to
succeed and many, many different abilities that will help you get
there. --Howard Gardner 'Multiple Intelligences'
We should use kids' positive states to draw them into learning in
the domains where they can develop competencies....You learn at your
best when you have something you care about and can get pleasure from
being engaged in. --Howard Gardner 'Multiple Intelligences'
Everyone, at present, is in favour of having students learn the
fundamentals. For most people, 'the three R's', or some variation of
them, represent what is fundamental to a learner. However, if one
observes a learner and asks oneself, "What is it that this organism
needs without which he cannot thrive?", it is impossible to come up
with the answer, "the three R's". --Postman & Weingartner 'Teaching
as a Subversive Activity'
English is not history and history is not science and science is
not art and art is not music, and art and music are minor subjects and
English, history and science major subjects, and a subject is something
you 'take' and when you have taken it, you have 'had' it, and if you
have 'had' it, you are immune and need not take it again. (The
Vaccination Theory of Education?) --'Independent' Editorial 7/1/00
The Government's favourite formula for raising educational standards
has the merit of simplicity. We are now top of the European league
table in at least one respect: our children are subjected to more
national school exams than those in any other country......Parents may
comfort themselves with the thought that, however badly educated their
children may be when they leave school, they will at least be able to
do exams. --Thomas Armstrong
The newer and broader picture suggests that the child
emerges into literacy by actively speaking, reading, and writing in the
context of real life, not through filling out phonics worksheets or
memorising words --Charlotte Mason
We prefer that they [the children] should never say they have learned
botany or conchology, geology or astronomy. The question is not, - how
much does the youth know when he has finished his education - but how
much does he care and about how many orders of things does he care?
--Charlotte Mason
In the year 2000 an illiterate person will not be someone who can't
read or write, but someone who is not able to learn, unlearn and learn
again. --Alvin Toffler
No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure. -Emma Goldman
An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how
much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know
and what you don't. --Anatole France
Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day,
something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else
would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be
part of unanimity. -Christopher Morley
To teach a man how he may learn to grow independently, and for himself,
is perhaps the greatest service that one man can do another. --Benjamin
Jowett
Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon. --E. M. Forster
One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. --Oliver Wendell Holmes
A lot of fellows nowadays have a B.A., M.D. or Ph.D. Unfortunately, they don't have a J.O.B. --Fats Domino
When you make the finding yourself - even if you are the last person on
Earth to see the light - you will never forget it. --Carl Sagan
Take away paradox from the thinker and you have a professor. --Kierkegaard
School was the unhappiest time of my life and the worst trick it ever
played on me was to pretend that it was the world in miniature. For it
hindered me from discovering how lovely and delightful and kind the
world can be, and how much of it is intelligible. --E.M.Forster
For thousands of years, in thousands of places, families educated their
own. This tradition changed not because a better method was found but
because economic conditions required it. To work one had to lreave
one's children; one's children, furthermore, had to be trained for
tasks no-one in their purview could be seen doing. For these reasons
institutionalised schooling was invented' and while it adequately
addressed a set of economic problems it inspired a new set of human
ones that are psychological, emotional, and even spiritual in nature.
--David Guterson 'Family Matters - Why Homeschooling Makes Sense'
I do not pine for a different place and time. I only point out what
we have traded off. I think certain good things are recoverable, though
without the life that once surrounded them they must inevitably take on
different meanings. One of these is the tradition of parental and
communal responsibility for the daily instruction of the young. Today
this is denied us because teaching has been institutionalised, a
convenience in a time of industry and profit when citizen-labourers
perform economic functions more efficiently without children present.
But for whom is such a state of affairs indeed convenient? --David
Guterson 'Family Matters - Why Homeschooling Makes Sense'
Learning theory tells us to teach children as individuals who learn
in their own unique manner. The finest possible curriculum is precisely
the one that starts with each child's
singular means of learning. Instruction and guidance are best provided
by those with an intimate understanding of the individual child and a deep commitment to the child's
education. these principles derive not merely from the homeschooling
movement but from contemporary research into how children learn. They
are not merely adages fabricated by homeschoolers but precepts grounded
in a science that should inspire us to reconsider both our roles as
parents and the shape of public education. --David Guterson 'Family
Matters - Why Homeschooling Makes Sense'
The opportunity to develop and practise social skills in school is
quite limited. Children spend nearly all their time in school with
other children born during the same academic year as themselves, and a
great deal of time outside school as well. In school, there is little
social contact with younger or older children and even less with
adults. It is easy to see how peer mores, values and codes of behaviour
become entrenched, resulting in considerable pressure to conform and
the threat of ostracism or exclusion from the group for those who do
not. Moreover, up to one and a half hours a day in school is
specifically set aside for social recreation in the playground, where
children are thrown together with nothing much to do. It is not
surprising that playground hierarchies emerge and bullying is rife.
--Alan Thomas 'Educating Children at Home'
The consequence is that the 'social' skills acquired are those
which may be essential for survival in school but have little
applicability in the outside world. There is virtually no opportunity
to relate socially to adults in school in order to learn wider social
skills. Ironically, such skills can only be learned outside school
hours. Teachers do, of course, set up social scenarios and discuss with
children how to behave in given social circumstances. But these are no
substitute for learning through real-life, dynamic social contact
--Rabindranath Tagore
School forcibly snatches away children from a world full of the mystery
of God's own handiwork, full of the suggestiveness of personality. It
is a mere method of discipline which refuses to take into account the
individual. It is a manufactory specially designed for grinding out
uniform results. It follows an imaginary straight line of the average
in digging its channel of education. But life's line is not the
straight line, for it is fond of playing the see-saw with the line of
average, bringing upon its head the rebuke of the school. For according
to the school life is perfect when it allows itself to be treated as
dead, to be cut into symmetrical conveniences. And this was the cause
of my suffering when I was sent to school....my mind had to accept the
tight-fitting encasement of the school which, being like the shoes of a
mandarin woman, pinched and bruised my nature on all sides and at every
movement. I was fortunate enough in extricating myself before
insensibility set in. --Rabindranath Tagore
I think children can be very cruel especially in adolescence and if you
are slow, and I was (I was in a school which was quite competitive) you
do get a lot of slamming about from the other kids. I don't know about
girls, but I know that boys are very cruel and very tough. It built up
a tremendous resentment in me because I was also bad at sport and
athletics and all I could do was play the piano. So I always got the
sense in my adolescent years that 'Oh, Hopkins, you know he's, well
he's not worth much, or he's a failure. --Anthony Hopkins
We live in a hierarchical world in which we defend ourselves ....from
our eternal infancy and childhood by insisting on a graded, necessary
elevation through learning and technological sophistication out of the child
into the adult. This is not a true initiation that values both the
previous form of existence and the newly attained one; it is a defence
against the humiliating reality of the child. --Thomas Moore
Education means "to lead out." We seem to understand this as leading
away from childhood, but maybe we could think of it as eliciting the
wisdom and talents of childhood itself. As A.S.Neill, founder of the
Summerhill School, taught many years ago, we can trust that the child already has talents and intelligence. We believe that the child intellectually is a tabula rasa, a blank blackboard, but maybe the child knows more than we suspect. --Thomas Moore
An eternal question about children is, how should we educate them?
Politicians and educators consider more school days in a year, more
science and math, the use of computers and other technology in the
classroom, more exams and tests, more certification for teachers, and
less money for art. All of these responses come from the place where we
want to make the child
into the best adult possible, not in the ancient Greek sense of
virtuous and wise, but in the sense of one who is an efficient part of
the machinery of society. But on all these counts, soul is neglected.
--Thomas Moore
Children present the best evidence for a psychology of providence. Here
I mean more than providential miracles, those amazing tales of children
falling from high ledges without harm, buried under earthquake debris
and surviving. Rather, I am referring to the humdrum miracles when the
mark of character appears. All of a sudden and out of nowhere a child
shows who she is, what he must do. These impulsions of destiny
frequently are stifled by dysfunctional perceptions and unreceptive
surroundings, so that calling appears in the myriad symptoms of
difficult, self-destructive, accident-prone, 'hyper' children - all
words invented by adults in defence of their misunderstanding. --James
Hillman 'The Soul's Code - In Search of Character & Calling'
Often it was not in school, but outside of it - in extracurricular
activities or during time spent altogether away from school - that
calling appeared. It is as if the image in the heart in so many cases
is hampered by the program of tuition and its time bound regularity.
--James Hillman 'The Soul's Code - In Search of Character &
Calling'
Childhood placed at a tangent to adulthood, perceived as special
and magical, precious and dangerous at once, has turned into some
volatile stuff - hydrogen, or mercury, which has to be contained. The
separate condition of the child
has never been so bounded by thinking, so established in law as it is
today......How we treat children really tests who we are, fundamentally
conveys who we hope to be. --Marina
Warner 'Managing Monsters' The Reith Lectures 1994
By bells and many other similar techniques they (schools) teach that
nothing is worth finishing. The gross error of this is progressive: if
nothing is worth finishing then by extension nothing is worth starting
either. Few children are so thick-skulled they miss the point. --John
Taylor Gatto
Teaching means different things in different places, but seven lessons
are universally taught from Harlem to Hollywood Hills. They constitute
a national curriculum you pay for in more ways than you can imagine, so
you might as well know what it is. --John Taylor Gatto
1. Confusion 2. Class Position 3. Indifference 4. Emotional Dependency
5. Intellectual Dependency 6. Provisional Self-Esteem 7. One Can't
Hide. It is the great triumph of compulsory, government monopoly
mass-schooling that among even the best of my fellow teachers, and
among even the best of my students' parents, only a small number can
imagine a different way to do things John Taylor Gatto
It is tempting to impose our goals on other people, particularly on
children or our subordinates. It is tempting for society to try to
impose its priorities on everybody. The strategy will however be
self-defeating if our goals, or society's goals, do not fit the goals
of the others. We may get our way but we don't get their learning. They
may have to comply but they will not change. We have pushed out their
goals with ours and stolen their purposes. It is a pernicious form of
theft which kills the will to learn. --Charles Handy
It seems to me that anything that can be taught to another is
relatively inconsequential, and has little or no significant influence
on behavior. I realise increasingly that I am only interested in
learnings which significantly influence behavior. I have come to feel
that the only learning which significantly influences behavior is
self-discovered, self-appropriated learning. Such self-discovered
learning, truth that has been personally appropriated and assimilated
in experience, cannot be directly communicated to another. As a
consequence of the above, I realize that I have lost interest in being
a teacher. --Carl Rogers
It appears, therefore, that some development of the capacity to be
alone is necessary if the brain is to function at its best, and if the
individual is to fulfil his highest potential. Human beings easily
become alienated from their own deepest needs and feelings. Learning,
thinking, innovation and maintaining contact with one's own inner world
are all facilitated by solitude. --Anthony Storr
extracted from http://www.learning-unlimited.org/ |
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jamescollett
Joined: 29 Nov 2002 Posts: 6 Location: Camberley, United Kingdom
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Posted: Fri Nov 29, 2002 3:11 pm Post subject: Quotes about Homeschooling and Education |
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"Hey, teacher! Leave them kids alone!"
- from The Wall, by Pink Floyd
"Oh come on now, Horstead, what are you? You're a sediment deposit at the bottom of the ocean, aren't you."
- My German teacher at school (whom I personally liked and got on with
very well) to a less-able pupil in a different class from mine.
"School's out forever!"
- Alice Cooper
"Shut up, Collett!"
- My Maths teacher, Neil Bibby, to me on frequent occasions. _________________ Life is not a zero-sum game. |
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Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2003 4:52 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="Roland"]The
immediate case against compulsory school for adolescents is quite
simply their barbarity: it is a triangle of hatred, humiliation and
contempt. -- Frank Musgrove
"The principle goal of education is to create men who are
capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what
other generations have done." -- Jean Piaget
"Before there were television and video games, kids used
to play outdoors, entertain themselves and work around the
house in the afternoons. Kids don't choose television over
people. They choose television because of lack of people
interaction." -- Brook Noel
"An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."
--Benjamin Franklin {1706-1790 American Founding Father & Scientist}
"When freedom prevails, the ingenuity and inventiveness of
people creates incredible wealth. This is the source of the
natural improvement of the human condition."
-- Brian S. Wesbury {American Economist}
"The illiterate of the future are not those that cannot read or
write. They are those that can not learn, unlearn, relearn."
--Alvin Toffler {American Author}
What is most important and valuable about the home as a base for children's growth
into the world is not that it is a better school than the schools, but that it isn't a school at all.
--John Holt
"Parents and families are the first and most important teachers.
If families teach a love of learning, it can make all the difference in the world to our children."
--Richard W. Riley, U.S. Secretary of Education
For me, home education has been a terrific journey away from static forms of learning,
institutional hoops to jump through, forms to please others, and a journey into a magical world
of wonder and discovery. Not relaxing, but certainly an exciting process.
--Val, California homeschool mom
"One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind, whether one liked
it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect that, after I had
passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any
scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year...... It is in
fact nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction
have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of enquiry; for this
delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of
freedom; without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail. It is a
very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching
can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. To the
contrary, I believe that it would be possible to rob even a healthy
beast of prey of its voraciousness, if it were possible, with the aid
of a whip, to force the beast to devour continuously, even when not
hungry - especially if the food, handed out under such coercion, were
to be selected accordingly."
--Albert Einstein
Thats my own concept of my job - Arming her with the tools she needs
to succeed on her own, and making course corrections along the way.
When you think about it - if I taught my daughter only what I knew,
no matter how knowledgable I was - I'd be limiting her severely.
--Joan Taylor, homeschool mom[/quote] |
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Roland
Joined: 20 Jun 2002 Posts: 28
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Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2004 11:37 pm Post subject: |
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Childhood is not preparation for adulthood - it is a part of life."
quote by A. Neill (principal - Summerhill Natural Learning Center) |
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