Education

"One purpose of education is to draw out the elements of our common human nature. These elements are the same in any time or place. The notion of educating a man to live in any particular time or place, to adjust him to any particular environment, is therefore foreign to a true conception of education. Education implies teaching. Teaching implies knowledge. Knowledge is truth. The truth is everywhere the same. Hence education should be everywhere the same."

"Even in kindergarten, children should learn – and experience – the fundamental human rights values of respect, equality and justice. From the earliest age, human rights education should be infused throughout the program of every school – in curricula and textbooks, policies, the training of teaching personnel, pedagogical methods and the overall learning environment. Children need to learn what bigotry and chauvinism are, and the evil they can produce. They need to learn that blind obedience can be exploited by authority figures for wicked ends. They should also learn that they are not exceptional because of where they were born, how they look, what passport they carry, or the social class, caste or creed of their parents; they should learn that no-one is intrinsically superior to her or his fellow human beings. Children can learn to recognise their own biases, and correct them. They can learn to redirect their own aggressive impulses and use non-violent means to resolve disputes. They can learn to be inspired by the courage of the pacifiers and by those who assist, not those who destroy. They can be guided by human rights education to make informed choices in life, to approach situations with critical and independent thought, and to empathise with other points of view."

"Why is it that in most children education seems to destroy the creative urge? Why do so many boys and girls leave school with blunted perceptions and a closed mind? A majority of young people seem to develop mental arteriosclerosis forty years before they get the physical kind. Another question: why do some people remain open and elastic into extreme old age, whereas others become rigid and unproductive before they're fifty? It's a problem in biochemistry and adult education."

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience."

"Universal education through schooling is not feasible. It would be no more feasible if it were attempted by means of alternative institutions built on the style of present schools. Neither new attitudes of teachers toward their pupils nor the proliferation of educational hardware or software (in classroom or bedroom), nor finally the attempt to expand the pedagogue's responsibility until it engulfs his pupils' lifetimes will deliver universal education. The current search for new educational funnels must be reversed into the search for their institutional inverse: educational webs which heighten the opportunity for each one to transform each moment of his living into one of learning, sharing, and caring. We hope to contribute concepts needed by those who conduct such counterfoil research on education — and also to those who seek alternatives to other established service industries."

"True education means fostering the ability to be interested in something."

"History does not relate any true revolution which came from power. All began with education and meant in essence a moral summons."

"How does this man have such a knowledge of the Scriptures when he has not studied at the schools?"

"Education is man's going forward from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty."

"Plato is the first writer who distinctly says that education is to comprehend the whole of life, and to be a preparation for another in which education begins again... He has long given up the notion that virtue cannot be taught; and he is disposed to modify the thesis of the Protagoras, that the virtues are one and not many. He is not unwilling to admit the sensible world into his scheme of truth. Nor does he assert in the Republic the involuntariness of vice, which is maintained by him in the Timaeus, Sophist, and Laws... Still, we observe in him the remains of the old Socratic doctrine, that true knowledge must be elicited from within, and is to be sought for in ideas, not in particulars of sense. Education, as he says, will implant a principle of intelligence which is better than ten thousand eyes. The paradox that the virtues are one, and the kindred notion that all virtue is knowledge, are not entirely renounced; the first is seen in the supremacy given to justice over the rest; the second in the tendency to absorb the moral virtues in the intellectual, and to centre all goodness in the contemplation of the idea of good. The world of sense is still depreciated and identified with opinion, though omitted to be a shadow of the true. In the Republic he is evidently impressed with the conviction that vice arises chiefly from ignorance and may be cured by education; the multitude are hardly to be deemed responsible for what they do ... he only proposes to elicit from the mind that which is there already. Education is represented by him, not as the filling of a vessel, but as the turning the eye of the soul towards the light."

"As a rule the concept of education is associated with children or young people, and although the accent should primarily lie in this quarter, because of the need of preparing them for life's experiences, the wise man will recognize that his education can never be regarded as fully completed. The deeper truths of life can in fact only be learned after reaching maturity, and after gaining some measure of life experience based on earlier education."

"Effective education should lead to a sense of synthesis and of recognition of the bonds and relations stretching beyond family ties, to include the local community, then the nation, and eventually encompassing world relationships, and thus all of humanity. This training should begin by suitable preparation for parenthood and good citizenship, but should not end before the pupil has been brought to an evaluation of the position and responsibilities he carries in relation to the rest of the world of men. This training would basically be psychological, and should convey a reasonable understanding of man's own constitution and functioning, and how this relationship stretches beyond the self, eventually becoming all-inclusive. He should also be made aware that the main causes of disharmony are based on selfishness, possessiveness, intolerance, separativeness and the lack of love."

"One of the first educational objectives should be to eliminate the competitive spirit and its substitution with a spirit of loving cooperation... What is needed is to surround the child with an atmosphere which will foster a sense of responsibility and which will set him free from the inhibitions generated by a perpetual sense of fear of life, and which then becomes the stimulus for competition. These qualities of responsibility and goodwill will be encouraged by stressing a new approach in the child's education: (a) Surrounding him with an atmosphere of love and trust, which will suppress the causes of timidity and will largely contribute to cast out fear. This love must be based on true and deep compassion and tenderness and not on emotional demonstrations. It should lead to courteous treatment of the child, and the expectation of equal courtesy to others.... (b) An atmosphere of patience will contribute considerably towards engendering the rudiments of responsibility... (c) For the developing child an atmosphere of understanding is absolutely essential."

"So often older people, by their negative approach, are apt to foster, even from very early years, a sense of wrong-doing with children. The emphasis is constantly laid on petty little things, which may be annoying but are not basically wrong. To the child they are, however, being blown up and represented out of all proportion. Psychologically this must have an adverse effect on the child's character, developing a warped sense of values, and an attitude of defensive resistance towards its elders. Instead of a purely negative attitude, one should reason with a child, explaining relative values and the reasons for the state of affairs, and the natural consequence of actions. In this way the elementary principles of the Law of Cause and Effect should also be introduced, and it will be found that such explanations will inevitably evoke response and build self-respect, confidence and responsibility."

"Man must develop his tendency towards the good."

"It was imagined that experiments in education were not necessary; and that, whether any thing in it was good or bad, could be judged of by the reason. But this was a great mistake; experience shows very often that results are produced precisely the opposite to those which had been expected. We also see from experiment that one generation cannot work out a complete plan of education."

"When brought to the proletariat from the capitalist class, science is invariably adapted to suit capitalist interests. What the proletariat needs is a scientific understanding of its own position in society. That kind of science a worker cannot obtain in the officially and socially approved manner. The proletarian himself must develop his own theory. For this reason he must be completely self-taught."

"Liberty without learning is always in peril; learning without liberty is always in vain."

"Even though there are physical differences between men and women in their appearance – one is taller and has a deeper voice – they both possess infinite potential in terms of their intellectual and spiritual capabilities and aren’t different from each other in this."

"Education does have a great role to play in this period of transition. But it is not either education or legislation; it is both education and legislation. [...] We must depend on religion and education to change bad internal attitudes, but we need legislation to control the external effects of those bad internal attitudes."

"You can think of the curriculum as the shadows cast on a wall by the light of education itself as it shines over, under, around, and through the myriad phases of our experience. It is a mistake to be sure to take these shadows for the reality, but they are something that helps us find or grasp or intuit that reality. The false notions that there is a fixed curriculum, that there is a list of things that an educated person ought to know, and that the shadow-exercises on the wall themselves are the content of education—these false notions all come from taking too seriously what was originally a wise recognition—the recognition that the shadows do in fact provide a starting point in our attempt to fully envision reality."