National School Reform Faculty

Quotes
Date: August 22-27, 2003
Listserv: Coaches

Friday, August 22, 2003 12:04 PM
Hi -
By any chance, do you have at your fingertips a quote that gets at the concept of... if kids are not learning, then we, as their teachers need to think differently about what we are doing?
Thanks,
Jennifer, MA

Friday, August 22, 2003 1:10 PM
These might be a stretch, but they're provocative.

There is no such thing as a neutral education process. Education either functions as an instrument that is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes “the practice of freedom.” The means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.
Richard Shaull

“We can whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all children whose schooling is of interest to us. We already know more than we need in order to do this. Whatever we do, it must finally depend on how we feel about the fact that we haven’t so far.”
Ron Edmunds
A Blueprint for Action III

“The kind of changes required by today’s agenda can only be the work of thoughtful teachers….to find time for thoughtful discussion we need to create schools in which consensus is easy to arrive at while argument is encouraged (even fostered) and focused on those issues of teaching and learning close to teacher and student experiences, rather than on procedural rules and processes, building-wide disciplinary codes, detention policies, filling out forms and checklist, scheduling, etc……This continuing dialogue, face to face, over and over, is a powerful educative force. It is our primary form of staff development.”
Deborah Meier
The Power of Their Ideas

The task of creating environments where all kids can experience the power of their ideas requires unsettling not only our accepted organization of schooling and our unspoken and unacknowledged agreement about the purposes of schools. Taking this task seriously also means calling into question our definitions of intelligence and the ways in which we judge each other.
Deborah Meier
The Power of Their Ideas
RoLesia, MA

Friday, August 22, 2003 1:18 PM
Here Jennifer and everyone-
“Every teacher must…by regarding every imperfection in the pupil’s comprehension, not as a defect of the pupil, but as a defect of his own instruction, endeavor to develop in himself the ability of discovering new methods.” -Tolstoy

Have a great start to the year, everyone!
Edorah, VT

Friday, August 22, 2003 2:40 PM
This doesn't quite fit, but I like it anyway.
If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves. -Carl Jung
Simon, RI

Friday, August 22, 2003 10:06 PM
I love the Ron Edwards quote RoLesia sent... I'm glad I read hers before I sent it again. A similar quote by Richard DuFour:

"Don't tell me you believe all children can learn; tell me what you do when they don't."
And a few other favorites:

"The biggest risk in education is not taking one."
- Seymour Sarason

"What you risk reveals what you value."
- Jeanette Winterson

"Success is found on the opposite side of 'good enough'"
- Annonymous

"The way organizations are now is a product of how we think and interact. We cannot change in any fundamental way unless we change our basic patterns of thinking and interacting so that learning can be a way of life."
- Peter Senge

"Teacher cultures, the relationships between teachers and their colleagues, are among the most significant aspects of teachers' lives and work... What goes on inside the classroom cannot be divorced from the relationships that are forged outside it."
- Michael Fullan, Andy Hargreaves

I'll stop now. I could go on forever! :-}
Linda, FL

Sunday, August 24, 2003 9:42 PM
If you are not teaching the test, then you are either teaching the wrong thing or testing the wrong thing.
Ron, TN

Monday, August 25, 2003 3:39 PM
These quotes from Linda are great, as were the ones from others. Nice to have as the new year begins.
Mary, ME

Monday, August 25, 2003 11:30 PM
Hi. Thanks for the quotes. As for the one that says, "All Children can Learn,” I think that it should say: All children can be given the opportunity to learn. This means that we can provide the opportunity, but we cannot guarantee that learning will take place. We should not always blame the teacher if learning does not occur. The teacher has the responsibility to provide the opportunity, and the child needs to do the learning. By saying all children can learn, we are implying that if the child does not learn, the fault lays with the provider-- the teacher. I am much more comfortable with this version. What do you think????
Manette, NY

Tuesday, August 26, 2003 8:27 AM
If we as educators don't believe that all children can learn then we are automatically setting the limit for the level of achievement in our classrooms. ALL children need to learn to believe in themselves. There are many stories about people overcoming tremendous odds in our society. When interviewed, many of these people point to someone in their life who believed in them--often these people were teachers. The self-fulfilling prophecy is alive and living. It is our job as educators to use this force to create environments where high expectations for ALL students are the norm. Isn't that what educational reform is all about?
Beth, CO

Tuesday, August 26, 2003 9:22 AM
I find the phrase all children can learn disrespectful to children. Students (those without serious disabilities) come to school knowing how to walk, and talk, and do complex thinking, negotiating and problem solving. Most come curious and enthusiastic about learning.
If a child does not attend to what a teacher is teaching, I believe that it is our responsibility as teachers to know that child well and to adapt how we teach in order to engage that student in learning. We must also believe that “all teachers can learn” and that all teachers would want to learn how to reach those children who are not currently well served by our past practices.
Thank you for your provocative query.
Daniel, IN

Tuesday, August 26, 2003 4:58 PM
Friends,
Most children come to us having learned oral language, sometimes, several. A pretty formidable learning task involving keen observational skills, trial and error, active listening, interpreting cues and clues from their environment, making inferences, taking risks.
I've never understood why it's so hard for some to accept this fact.
Pete, FL

Tuesday, August 26, 2003 5:40 PM
Greetings from Houston,
Sometimes I think that as teachers we forget to be learners and explicitly model "life long learning." Instead we tend to concentrate on "teaching" which often overlooks "learning."
Tim, TX

Tuesday, August 26, 2003 7:23 PM
Which, of course, prompts the John Holt quote, "Be thankful that we don't teach children how to walk, or we'd have a nation of cripples."
Hannah, CA

Tuesday, August 26, 2003 7:33 PM
Daniel, I think that's exactly what the DuFour quote is getting at. Saying we believe "all children can learn" is a meaningless statement. There are tons of things kids can do and have learned to do well ... so why are these same kids struggling in our schools? There is some kind of disconnect between what they've learned in the past and how they've learned it, and what they are expected to do and learn in schools. The work is now to figure out how to engage them in new learning and help them become successful learners in the context of school... and life. A "no excuses" approach. There may be tons of reasons why a particular child is struggling with a particular skill - so now what??? The kids who walk into our classrooms are the students that we teach - using whatever they came in with as background to help build a bridge to what we want them to walk out with.
I agree that this is a fascinating conversation.
Linda, FL

Wednesday, August 27, 2003 8:59 PM
And, we may not always realize just what children are learning from us until they come back and tell us, many years later. Sometimes their affect is so different from ours; we don't recognize that we have gotten through.
Susan, AZ