Paralysis of leadership is due in part to the unseen grip of the special interests.
John W. GardnerRead
Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Education should empower individuals to grow and think critically rather than just providing them with information.
John W. Gardner highlights the inadequacy of contemporary education systems by comparing them to providing cut flowers instead of teaching young people to cultivate their own plants. This metaphor emphasizes the importance of nurturing skills and critical thinking, rather than merely supplying knowledge that lacks depth and self-sufficiency. It advocates for an educational approach that fosters growth and independence in learners.
Themes
EducationGrowthLearningKnowledgeTeaching
In practice
Example use cases
A teacher could use this quote in a presentation about modern educational practices.
More from John W. Gardner
All quotes →More and more Americans feel threatened by runaway technology, by large-scale organization, by overcrowding. More and more Americans are appalled by the ravages of industrial progress, by the defacement of nature, by man-made ugliness. If our society continues at its present rate to become less livable as it becomes more affluent, we promise all to end up in sumptuous misery.
John W. GardnerRead
Storybook happiness involves every form of pleasant thumb-twiddling; true happiness involves the full use of one's powers and talents.
John W. GardnerRead
Leaders come in many forms, with many styles and diverse qualities. There are quiet leaders and leaders one can hear in the next county. Some find strength in eloquence, some in judgment, some in courage.
John W. GardnerRead
We pay a heavy price for our fear of failure. It is a powerful obstacle to growth. It assures the progressive narrowing of the personality and prevents exploration and experimentation. There is no learning without some difficulty and fumbling. If you want to keep on learning, you must keep on risking failure-all your life.
John W. GardnerRead
I think that all human systems require continuous renewal. They rigidify. They get stuff in the joints. They forget what they cared about. The forces against it are nostalgia and the enormous appeal of having things the way they always have been, appeals to a supposedly happy past. But we've got to move on.
John W. GardnerRead
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May blessings be upon the head of Cadmus, the Phoenicians, or whoever it was that invented books.
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