Sometimes the most brilliant and intelligent minds do not shine in standardized tests because they do not have standardized minds.
Diane RavitchRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Education should empower children with knowledge and understanding of democracy to fully exercise their rights.
Diane Ravitch emphasizes the critical role of education in shaping the future of children. Without a strong educational foundation that inspires a vision of human potential and imparts essential knowledge, children risk becoming mere participants in external agendas, lacking awareness of the importance of their rights and responsibilities in a democratic society. It highlights the necessity for schools to nurture critical thinking and civic engagement, so that students can actively contribute to their communities and uphold democratic values.
Themes
EducationDemocracyEmpowermentRightsKnowledge
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech advocating for educational reform, one might use this quote to underscore the importance of a curriculum that promotes democratic values.
More from Diane Ravitch
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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.
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Can teachers successfully educate children to think for themselves if teachers are not treated as professionals who think for themselves?
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Without knowledge and understanding, one tends to become a passive spectator rather than an active participant in the great decisions of our time.
Diane RavitchRead
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Place the lives of children in their formative years, despite the convictions of their parents, under the intimate control of experts appointed by the state, force them to attend schools where the higher aspirations of humanity are crushed out, and where the mind is filled with the materialism of the day, and it is difficult to see how even the remnants of liberty can subsist.
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Although it may be true that the notion of teaching virtues such as honesty or integrity arouses little controversy, it is also true that vague consensus on the goodness of these virtues conceals a great deal of actual disagreement over their definitions.
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If you pay a child a dollar to read a book, as some schools have tried, you not only create an expectation that reading makes you money, you also run the risk of depriving the child for ever of the value of it. Markets are not innocent.
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...the exchange of students...should be vastly expanded...Information and education are powerful forces in support of peace. Just as war begins in the minds of men, so does peace.
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It seems to me that the great pleasure of human life is not in having an opinion, but rather in learning all the ways you are wrong, and all the nuances you failed to account for, and all the truths that turned out to be not as simple as you once believed. And it seems to me that one of the central pleasures of attending school is that you get to read with really well-informed people who can help welcome you into a complex world stuffed with rich and maddening ambiguity.
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