“Life is a series of lessons in which there is never enough learned.”
“I will not find myself, nor will I obtain any precarious morsel of life in giving all of life to myself. If I am ever to find these things, I must first be willing to give these things away at the very moment that I come into possession of them.”
“Many of the world’s greatest geniuses all had in common that they were pulled from the school environment. They were freed to discover the undiscovered. They had the imagination to ‘see’ a different way and the drive to try to build what they had seen.”
“Once, it was possible to learn things, and to be shaped by your learning, he says. Once, to be a student meant to be formed by what you learned. To let it enter your soul. But today? We re drowning in openness, he says. In our sense of the possible. We re ready to take anything in - to learn about anything, and therefore about nothing.”
“The art and craft of early childhood teaching is in making decisions about fun, play and work. And it is this crafting that distinguishes the professional from the baby-sitter, parent or child minder.”
“Management is like sex - everyone thinks they’re good at it despite limited evidence.”
“There’s a fine line between child-like – learning as a child does, the natural way we learn most stuff – and being child-ish.”
“Walking the walk is one thing, but it is so much more powerful if you can talk it as well.”
“Annoyance has made me bilingual.”
“I don’t need to go to heaven or hell. I have been both places and always wanted more. I will settle for somewhere in between, so eternity never becomes dull and every miracle is something I never take for granted.”
“You have to make your own condensed notes. You learn from MAKING them. A lot of thinking goes into deciding what to include and exclude. You develop your own system of abbreviations and memory methods for the information.”
“The teacher is a catalyst to convert information from a high energy state (list of facts) to a low energy state (visual concept associated with known concepts).”
“Ambient sounds, especially with words, occupy about 5-10% of your intellectual bandwidth. By wearing ear protectors, you acoustically isolate yourself. This freed up bandwidth can now be focused on the desired task. It s a great deal. Just put on some earmuffs and you become 5-10% smarter.”
“Always maintain the attitude of a student. When a person thinks they have finished learning, that is when bitterness and disappointment can set in, as that person will wake up everyday wondering when someone is going to throw a parade in their honour for being so smart.”
“Teach what you know, regardless of when you have learned it -- teach what you learned yesterday sagely, as if you have known it all your life, and teach what you have known for decades with enthusiasm, as if you learned it only yesterday.”
“Genuine collaboration is an environment that promotes communication, learning, maximum contribution, and innovation.”
“Bruner discusses the need for teachers to understand that children should want to study for study s own sake, for learnings s sake, not for the sake of good grades or examination success. The curriculum should, in other words, be interesting. (Yes, it sounds too obvious even to say, but sometimes the emphasis on content has trumped all other considerations, including that of making learning interesting.)”