Great Throughts Treasury

"We have inadvertently designed a system in which being good at what you do as a teacher is not formally rewarded, while being poor at what you do is seldom corrected nor penalized."

"Minds, unlike brains, are not entirely given at birth. Minds are also forms of cultural achievement."

"The limits of our cognition are not defined by the limits of our language."

"I want to bring my remarks to a close by reminding all of us here that visions, no matter how grand, need to be acted upon to become real. Ideas, clearly, are important. Without them change has no rudder. But change also needs wind and a sail to catch it. Without them there is no movement. Frankly, this may be the most challenging aspect of the proposal I have made. The public’s perception of the purpose of education supports the current paradigm. We need to sail against the tide. Our destination is to change the social vision of what schools can be. It will not be an easy journey but when the seas seem too treacherous to travel and the stars too distant to touch we should remember Robert Browning’s observation that “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp or what’s a heaven for.”"