“I doubt very much if it is possible to teach anyone to understand anything,that is to say, to see how various parts of it relate to all the other parts, tohave a model of the structure in one's mind. We can give other peoplenames, and lists, but we cannot give them our mental structures; they mustbuild their own.”

“Why do people take or keep their children out of school? Mostly for three reasons: they think that raising their children is their business not the government’s; they enjoy being with their children and watching and helping them learn, and don’t want to give that up to others; they want to keep them from being hurt, mentally, physically, and spiritually.”

“Leaders are not, as we are often led to think, people who go along with huge crowds following them. Leaders are people who go their own way without caring, or even looking to see, whether anyone is following them. "Leadership qualities" are not the qualities that enable people to attract followers, but those that enable them to do without them. They include, at the very least, courage, endurance, patience, humor, flexibility, resourcefulness, stubbornness, a keen sense of reality, and the ability to keep a cool and clear head, even when things are going badly. True leaders, in short, do not make people into followers, but into other leaders.”

“Of all I saw and learned this past half year, one thing stands out. What goeson in the class is not what teachers think-- certainly not what I had alwaysthought. For years now I have worked with a picture in mind of what myclass was like. This reality, which I felt I knew, was partly physical, partlymental or spiritual. In other words, I thought I knew, in general, what thestudents were doing, and also what they were thinking and feeling. I see nowthat my picture of reality was almost wholly false. Why didn’t I see thisbefore?”

“Someone asked the other day, "Why do we go to school?" Pat, with vigorunusual in her, said, "So when we grow up we won't be stupid." Thesechildren equate stupidity with ignorance. Is this what they mean when theycall themselves stupid? Is this one of the reasons why they are so ashamed ofnot knowing something? If so, have we, perhaps un-knowingly, taught themto feel this way? We should clear up this distinction, show them that it ispossible to know very few facts, but make very good use of them.Conversely, one can know many facts and still act stupidly. The learned foolis by no means rare in this country.”

“We can best help children learn, not by deciding what we think they should learn and thinking of ingenious ways to teach it to them, but by making the world, as far as we can, accessible to them, paying serious attention to what they do, answering their questions -- if they have any -- and helping them explore the things they are most interested in.”

“The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don't know what to do.”