Like any other tool for facilitating the completion of a questionable task, rewards offer a “how” answer to what is really a “why” question.
Don’t let anyone tell you that standardized tests are not accurate measures. The truth of the matter is they offer a remarkably precise method for gauging the size of the houses near the school where the test was administered.
Children learn how to make good decisions by making decisions, not by following directions.
If children feel safe, they can take risks, ask questions, make mistakes, learn to trust, share their feelings, and grow.
Children, after all, are not just adults-in-the-making. They are people whose current needs and rights and experiences must be taken seriously.
In outstanding classrooms, teachers do more listening than talking, and students do more talking than listening. Terrific teachers often have teeth marks on their tongues.
Educational success should be measured by how strong your desire is to keep learning.
Whoever said there’s no such thing as a stupid question never looked carefully at a standardized test.
Saying you taught it but the student didn’t learn it is like saying you sold it but the customer didn’t buy it.
People will typically be more enthusiastic where they feel a sense of belonging and see themselves as part of a community than they will in a workplace in which each person is left to his own devices.
How we feel about our kids isn’t as important as how they experience those feelings and how they regard the way we treat them.
We have so much to cover and so little time to cover it. Howard Gardner refers to curriculum coverage as the single greatest enemy of understanding. Think instead about ideas to be discovered.
Educators remind us that what counts in a classroom is not what the teacher teaches; it’s what the learner learns.
You have to give them unconditional love. They need to know that even if they screw up, you love them. You don’t want them to grow up and resent you or, even worse, parent the way you parented them.
When test scores go up, we should worry, because of how poor a measure they are of what matters, and what you typically sacrifice in a desperate effort to raise scores.