Word
Gems
What is a
man but the sum of his thoughts?
Education
& Teaching
- "The education that I propose includes all that is
proper for a man and it is one in which all men who are born into this world should share.
... Our first wish is that all men be educated fully to full humanity, not any one
individual, not a few, nor even many, but all men together and singly, young and old, rich
and poor, of high and lowly birth, men and women -- in a word, all those whose fate it is
to be born human beings, so that at last the whole of the human race become educated, men
of all ages, all conditions, both sexes, and all nations."
John Amos Comenius, 1657
-
Conversation between Sir Edmund
Hillary and Urkien Sherpa, Schoolhouse in the
Clouds: “Tell us, if there were one thing we
could do for your village, what would it be?” “With all respect,
Sahib, you have little to teach us in strength and toughness. And
we don’t envy your restless spirits. Perhaps we are happier than
you? But we would like our children to go to school. Of all the things you have, learning is the one we
most desire for our children
.”
-
Greg
Mortenson: “It is my vision that
all people of our planet will dedicate the next decade to achieve
universal literacy and education for all children, especially for
girls. Over 145 million children in the world remain
deprived of education due to poverty, exploitation, slavery,
religious extremism, and corrupt governments. May this book,
Three Cups of Tea, be a catalyst to bring the gift of
literacy to those deprived children who all deserve a chance to go
to school.”
-
Three Cups of Tea, by
Mortenson and Relin :
(2003) 17 year-old Jahan, the first educated woman of the
Braldu Valley, a graduate of Pakistan’s Korphe school, the
first elementary school built by Mortenson in 1995: “Before I met you
Dr. Greg, I had no idea what education was. But now I think it is
like water. It is important for everything in life.” Mortenson
asks her of her plans. She will tell him if he agrees not to
laugh. He teases her with a threat that he might. “When I was a
little sort of girl and I would see a gentleman or a lady with
good, clean clothes I would run away and hide my face. But after I
graduated from the Korphe School, I felt a big change in my life.
I felt I was clear and clean and could go
before anybody and discuss anything. And now that I am
already in Skardu [to study], I feel that
anything is possible. I don’t want to be just a health
worker [anymore]. I want to be such a woman
that I can start a hospital and be an executive, and look over all
the health problems of all the women in the Braldu. I want to
become a very famous woman of this area. I want to be a …
‘Superlady’[she said with a grin].” Mortenson didn’t laugh
and mused that ten years of work was not too
much effort to relish such a moment.
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Three Dog Night, Black And
White:
"The ink is black, the page is white
Together we learn
to read and write
A child is black, a child is white
The
whole world looks upon the sight, a beautiful sight...
The world is black, the world is white
It turns by day
and then by night
A child is black, a child is
white
Together they grow to see the
light, to see the light... |
-
Three Cups of Tea, by
Mortenson and Relin: Pakistan’s Brigadier General
Bashir Baz to Greg Mortenson (2003): “You have to attack the source
of your enemy’s strength. In America’s case, that’s not Osama or
Saddam or anyone else.
The enemy is ignorance. The only way to defeat it
is to build relationships with these people, to draw them into
the modern world with education and business.
Otherwise the fight will go on forever.”
- Three Cups of Tea, by
Mortenson and Relin: Syed Mohammed Abbas Risvi,
Supreme Shia Council of Mullahs, Qom, Iran, speaking at the
dedication of Greg Mortenson’s new elementary school in Kuardu,
Pakistan, Friday, September 14, 2001: “It is by fate that Allah
the Almighty has brought us together in this hour. Today is a day
that you children will remember forever… Today, from the darkness
of illiteracy, the light of education shines bright. We share in
the sorrow as people weep and suffer in America today as we
inaugurate this school. Those who have committed this evil act
against the innocent, the women and children, to create thousands
of widows and orphans do not do so in the name of Islam. By the
grace of Allah the Almighty, may justice be served upon them. For
this tragedy, I humbly ask Mr. George and Dr. Greg Sahib for their
forgiveness. All of you, my brethren: Protect and embrace these
two American brothers in our midst. Let no harm come to them.
Share all you have to make their mission successful. These two
Christian men have come halfway around the world to show our
Muslim children the light of education. Why have we not been able to bring education to our
children on our own? Fathers and parents, I
implore you to dedicate your full effort and commitment to see
that all your children are educated. Otherwise, they will merely graze like sheep in the
field, at the mercy of nature and the world changing so
terrifyingly around us. I request America to look
into our hearts and see that the great majority of us are not
terrorists, but good and simple people. Our land is stricken with poverty because we are
without education. But today, another candle of knowledge has been
lit. In the name of Allah the Almighty, may it light our way out
of the darkness we find ourselves in.” (Mortenson:
“It was an incredible speech. And by the time Syed Abbas had
finished he had the entire crowd in tears.”)
| Goals |
Acquisition
of Organized Knowledge
by means of |
Development of Intellectual
Skills, the Skills of Learning
by means of |
Enlarged Understanding of
Ideas and Values
by means of |
| Means |
Didactic Instruction,
Lectures and Textbooks
in the subject areas of |
Coaching, Exercises, and
Supervised Practice
in the operations of |
Socratic Questioning and
Active Participation
in the |
| Areas, Operations, & Activities |
Language, Literature, and
The Fine Arts
Mathematics and Natural Science
History, Geography and Social Studies |
Reading, Writing, Speaking,
Listening
Calculating, Problem Solving, Observing, Measuring, Estimating
Exercising Critical Judgment |
Discussion of Books (not
textbooks) and Other Works of Art; Involvement in Artistic, Activities; e.g., Music,
Drama, Visual Arts |
- Thomas Jefferson: "Enlighten the people
generally, and tyranny and oppressions of the body and mind will vanish like evil spirits
at the dawn of day."
- Henry
Brooks Adams: "A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his
influence stops."
- Confucious (551 - 479 BC): "If I am walking with two other
men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and
imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself."
- Albert Einstein: "The difference between what the most and
the least learned people know is inexpressibly trivial in relation to that which is
unknown."
- Proverbs 23:7: "For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is
he."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson: "What is life but the angle of vision?
A man is measured by the angle at which he looks at objects. What is life but what a man
is thinking of all day? This is his fate and his employer. Knowing is the measure of the
man. By how much we know, so we are... Great men are they who see that spiritual thought
is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world."
- Betrand Russell: "Men fear thought as they fear
nothing else on earth -- more than ruin -- more even than death... Thought
is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless
to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit
of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world,
and the chief glory of man."
- Alfred Whitney, Essays on Education: "Books won't
stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the
censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas
is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom
is a liberal education."
- Interview of Mortimer J. Adler with Max Weismann, in Philosophy is
Everybody's Business: Journal of the Center for the Study of The Great Ideas, Vol 3,
No 1, 1996: "Suppose there were a college or university in which the
faculty was thus composed: Herodotus and Thucydides taught the history of Greece, and
Gibbon lectured on the fall of Rome. Plato and St. Thomas gave a course in metaphysics
together; Fracis Bacon and John Stuart Mill discussed the logic of science; Aristotle,
Spinoza, and Immanuel Kant shared the platform on moral problems; Machiavelli, Thomas
Hobbes, and John Locke talked about politics... You could take a series of courses
in mathematics from Euclid, Descartes, Riemann, and Cantor, with Bertrand Russell and A.N.
Whitehead added at the end. You could listen to St. Augustine, Aquinas and William James
talk about the nature of man and the human mind, with perhaps Jacques Maritain to comment
on the lectures... In economics, the lectures were by Adam Smith, Ricardo, Karl Marx, and
Marshall. Boas discussed the human race and its races, Thorstein Veblen and John Dewey the
economic and political problems of American democracy, and Lenin lectured on communism...
There might even be lectures on art by Leonardo da Vinci, and a lecture on Leonardo by
Freud. A much larger faculty than this is imaginable, but this will suffice... Would
anyone want to go to any other university, if he could get into this one? There need be no
limitation of numbers. The price of admission -- the only entrance requirement -- is the
ability and willingness to read and discuss.This school exists for everybody who
is willing and able to learn from first-rate teachers."
- Aristotle: "The educated differ from the uneducated as much
as the living from the dead."
- Abraham Lincoln: "A child is a person who is going to carry on what you have
started. He is going to sit where you are sitting and when you are gone, attend
to those things which you think are important. You may adopt all the policies you please,
but how they are carried out depends on him. He will assume control of your cities, states
and nations. He is going to move in and take over your churches, schools, universities,
and corporations. All your books are going to be judged, praised or condemned by him. The
fate of humanity is in his hands."
- Epictetus: "Only the educated are free."
- Henry Peter, Lord Brougham, The Present State of the Law:
"Education makes people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but
impossible to enslave."
- Benjamin Franklin: "If a man empties his purse into his
head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best
interest.
- Thomas Jefferson: "Enlighten the people generally, and
tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
- Robert Maynard Hutchins, The Political Animal: "A
liberal education... frees a person from the prison-house of his class, race, time, place,
background, family, and even his nation."
- Edward Everett: "Education is a better safeguard of liberty
than a standing army."
- James Madison: "Learned Institutions ought to be favorite
objects with every free people. They throw that light over the public mind which is the
best security against crafty & dangerous encroachments on the public liberty."
- Charles Phillips, 1816:
"Education is a companion which no misfortune can depress, no
crime can destroy, no enemy can alienate, no despotism can
enslave. At home, a friend, abroad an introduction. In solitude, a
solace, and in society, an ornament. It hastens vice, it guides
virtue; it gives, at once, grace and government to genius. Without it, what is man? A splendid slave, a
reasoning savage."
- Unknown: "If you can afford only one newspaper, read the
opposition's."
- Will Rogers: The problem is not so much one of ignorance but
with "all the things we know that ain't so."
- Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain): "The man who does not read good books
has no advantage over the man who cannot read them."
- Malcolm S. Forbes: "Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind
with an open one."
- Burrhus Frederic Skinner: "Education is what survives when what has
been learned has been forgotten."
- William Butler Yeats: "Education is not the filling of a pail, but
the lighting of a fire."
- John Dewey: "Education is not a preparation for life;
education is life itself."
- Will Durant: "Education is a progressive discovery of our
own ignorance."
- Confucius:
"Hear
and you forget; see and you remember; do and you understand."
- Walter
Raleigh, Some
Thoughts on Examinations:
"In an examination
those who do not wish to know ask questions of those who cannot
tell."
- Plutarch:
"The
mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled."
- Albert
Einstein: "The
only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."
- Leonardo de Vinci: "Poor is the pupil who does not surpass
his master."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.: "The function of education is to
teach one to think intensively and to think critically... Intelligence plus character --
that is the goal of true education."
- William Glasser: The retention of information can be quantified
as follows: "We remember 10% of what we read; 20% of what hear;
30% of what we see; 50% of what we see and hear; 70% of
what is discussed with others; 80% of what we experience
personally; 95% of what we teach to someone else."
- Albert Einstein: "It is the supreme art of
the teacher to awaken the joy in creative expression and knowledge."
- Thomas Jefferson, on the purpose of education: "To give to
every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business; to enable
him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and
accounts in writing; to improve, by reading, his morals and faculties; to understand his
duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions
confided to him by either; to know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he
retains, to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice
their conduct with diligence, with candor and judgement; and in general, to observe with
intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be
placed."
- Joseph Stalin, 1934: "Education is a weapon, whose effect
depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed."
- Socrates: "Learning adorns riches and softens
poverty."
- C.
Bradley Thompson, Ashland University: "During his retirement
years, [John Adams] was fond of saying that the War for Independence
was a consequence of the American Revolution. The real revolution, he
declared, had taken place in the minds and hearts of the colonists in the fifteen years
prior to 1776. According to Adams, the American Revolution was first and foremost an intellectual revolution.
- Diogenes: "The foundation of every state is the education
of its youth."
- Winston Churchill: "The first duty of a university is to
teach wisdom, not a trade; character, not technicalities."
- John A. Ciardi, poet and Professor of
English, Rutgers University: "..
a university has no real existence and no real purpose except as it succeeds in putting
you in touch, both as specialist and as humans, with those minds your human mind needs to
include. The faculty, by its very existence, says implicitly: 'We
have been aided by many people, and by many books, and by the arts, in our attempt to make
ourselves some sort of storehouse of human experience. We are here to make available to
you, as best we can, that experience."
- Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays: "We are faced
with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to
intelligence and freedom of thought."
- Plutarch: "The mind
is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited."
- Thomas Szasz, professor of psychiatry: "Every act of
conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to
one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own
self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially
if vain or important, cannot learn at all."
- Paul Zane Pilzer: "Despite a documented low
correlation between money spent and improvement in the quantity and quality of public
education, the reform of public education has focused almost exclusively on the
financial issue."
- Albert Shanker, past president of the American
Federation of Teachers: "When schoolchildren start paying union
dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of schoolchildren."
-
Ronald Reagan:
“Our leaders must remember that education doesn’t begin with some
isolated bureaucrat in Washington. It doesn’t even begin with
State or local officials. Education begins in
the home, where it’s a parental right and responsibility.
Both our public and our private schools exist to aid our families
in the instruction of our children, and it’s time some people back
in Washington stopped acting as if family wishes were only getting
in the way.”
- When asked how much the educated were superior to the
uneducated, Aristotle responded: "As much as the living are to the dead."
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