We’ve got to do fewer things in school. The greatest enemy of understanding is coverage... You’ve got to take enough time to get kids deeply involved in something so they can think about it in lots of different ways and apply it.
Anything that is worth teaching can be presented in many different ways. These multiple ways can make use of our multiple intelligences.
If you are not prepared to resign or be fired for what you believe in, then you are not a worker, let alone a professional. You are a slave.
The biggest mistake of past centuries in teaching has been to treat all students as if they were variants of the same individual and thus to feel justified in teaching them all the same subjects the same way.
We should spend less time ranking children and more time helping them to identify their natural competencies and gifts and cultivate these. There are hundreds and hundreds of ways to succeed and many, many different abilities that will help you get there.
It’s not how smart you are that matters, what really counts is how you are smart.
The Goal of Education is to Help People Use Their Minds Better.
You learn at your best when you have something you care about and can get pleasure in being engaged in.
I want my children to understand the world, but not just because the world is fascinating and the human mind is curious. I want them to understand it so that they will be positioned to make it a better place.
Young children possess the ability to cut across the customary categories; to appreciate usually undiscerned links among realms, to respond effectively in a parallel manner to events which are usually categorized differently, and to capture these ori.
The countries who do the best in international comparisons, whether it’s Finland or Japan, Denmark or Singapore, do well because they have professional teachers who are respected, and they also have family and community which support learning.
An individual understands a concept, skill, theory, or domain of knowledge to the extent that he or she can apply it appropriately in a new situation.
Creativity begins with an affinity for something. It’s like falling in love.
Stories are the single most powerful tool in a leader’s toolkit.
If we were to abandon concern for what is true, what is false, and what remains indeterminate, the world would be totally chaotic. Even those who deny the importance of truth, on the one hand, are quick to jump on anyone who is caught lying.
One must exploit the asynchronies that have befallen one, link them to a promising issue or domain, reframe frustrations as opportunities, and, above all, persevere.
Teaching which ignores the realities of children will be rejected as surely as any graft which attempts to ignore the body’s immune system.