Sometimes the most brilliant and intelligent minds do not shine in standardized tests because they do not have standardized minds.
Diane RavitchRead
Can teachers successfully educate children to think for themselves if teachers are not treated as professionals who think for themselves?
Interpretation
Teachers need to be respected as professionals to effectively educate students in critical thinking.
This quote emphasizes the importance of treating teachers as professionals in their own right, suggesting that for educators to successfully foster independent thinking in their students, they must themselves be granted the autonomy and respect required to think freely and innovatively. It underscores the interdependence between the treatment of educators and the development of critical thinking skills in children.
In practice
During a teacher training seminar to emphasize the importance of educational autonomy.
Sometimes the most brilliant and intelligent minds do not shine in standardized tests because they do not have standardized minds.
The greatest obstacle to those who hope to reform American education is complacency.
Teachers' working conditions are students' learning conditions
What should we think of someone who never admits error, never entertains doubt but adheres unflinchingly to the same ideas all his life, regardless of new evidence? Doubt and skepticism are signs of rationality. When we are too certain of our opinions, we run the risk of ignoring any evidence that conflicts with our views. It is doubt that shows we are still thinking, still willing to reexamine hardened beliefs when confronted with new facts and new evidence.
Unless the schools provide our children with a vision of human possibility that enlightens and empowers them with knowledge and taste, they will simply play their role in someone else's marketing schemes. Unless they understand deeply the sources of our democracy, they will take it for granted and fail to exercise their rights and responsibilities.
Without knowledge and understanding, one tends to become a passive spectator rather than an active participant in the great decisions of our time.
We are quite rich enough to defend ourselves, whatever the cost. We must now learn that we are quite rich enough to educate ourselves as we need to be educated.
Each time I visit such a classroom, where the teacher is more interested in creating a democratic community than in maintaining her position of authority, Iβm convinced all over again that moving away from consequences and rewards isnβt just realistic - itβs the best way to help kids grow into good learners and good people.
In the 1970s, what I, as a young foreign student studying in the United States, found most dynamic, exciting and impressive about this country is what much of the world continues to value most about the U.S. today: its open intellectual culture, its great universities, its capacity for discovery and innovation.
The writer must have a good imagination to begin with, but the imagination has to be muscular, which means it must be exercised in a disciplined way, day in and day out, by writing, failing, succeeding and revising.
There are a lot of books about how to get organized and a lot of books about how to be better and more productive at business, but I don't know of one that grounds any of these in the science.
There's a lot of talk these days about giving children self-esteem. It's not something you can give; it's something they have to build. Coach Graham worked in a no-coddling zone. Self-esteem? He knew there was really only one way to teach kids how to develop it: You give them something they can't do, they work hard until they find they can do it, and you just keep repeating the process.
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