The wave of punitiveness that washed over the United States with the rise of the drug war and the get tough movement really flooded our schools. Schools, caught up in this maelstrom, began viewing children as criminals or suspects, rather than as young people with an enormous amount of potential struggling in their own ways … Continue reading Quote for Today: Michelle Alexander
education
Quote for Today: L. P. Jacks
A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine … Continue reading Quote for Today: L. P. Jacks
Quote for Today: Robert M. Pirsig
That sounded right, and the more he thought about it the more right it sounded. Schools teach you to imitate. If you don’t imitate what the teacher wants you get a bad grade. Here, in college, it was more sophisticated, of course; you were supposed to imitate the teacher in such a way as to … Continue reading Quote for Today: Robert M. Pirsig
Quote for Today: Jean Piaget
The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done; men and women who are creative, inventive and discoverers, who can be critical and verify, and not accept, everything they are offered. ―Jean Piaget Public Domain … Continue reading Quote for Today: Jean Piaget
Quote for Today: Carl Sagan
If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us. In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the … Continue reading Quote for Today: Carl Sagan
Signs of the Times: Isolation in Natsume Soseki’s Kokoro
Society changes constantly. How do we respond to the alienation and loneliness that result from these changes? Kokoro, which can be translated as The Heart of Things, is a novel written by Natsume Soseki in 1914, at the end of what is known as the Meiji period in Japan. It is full of insight into how changes … Continue reading Signs of the Times: Isolation in Natsume Soseki’s Kokoro
Quote for Today: Adam Braun
While traveling through India in 2006, I asked a boy begging on the streets, "If you could have anything in the world, what would you want?" and he answered me with two words: "A pencil." Luckily, I had one in my pocket, and in the second it took me to give it to him, a … Continue reading Quote for Today: Adam Braun
