We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement. Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement.
A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.
The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount.
Give me a child and I’ll shape him into anything.
A person’s genetic endowment, a product of the evolution of the species, is said to explain part of the workings of his mind and his personal history the rest.
A person who has been punished is not thereby simply less inclined to behave in a given way; at best, he learns how to avoid punishment.
Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
Unable to understand how or why the person we see behaves as he does, we attribute his behavior to a person we cannot see, whose behavior we cannot explain either but about whom we are not inclined to ask questions.
What is love except another name for the use of positive reinforcement? Or vice versa.
Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.
Behavior is shaped and maintained by its consequences.
It is not a question of starting. The start has been made. It’s a question of what’s to be done from now on.
That’s all teaching is; arranging contingencies which bring changes in behavior.