Curiosity Has No Important Place In My

Growth And Mastery Come Only To Those Who Vigorously Self-direct. Initiating, Creating, Doing, Reflecting, Freely Associating, Enjoying Privacy-these Are Precisely What The Structures Of Schooling Are Set Up To Prevent, On One Pretext Or Another.

Teaching Is A Function, Not A Profession. Anything With Something To Offer Can Teach.

Looking Back On A 30-year Teaching Career Full Of Rewards And Prizes, Somehow I Can't Completely Believe That I Spent My Time On Earth Institutionalized; I Can't Believe That Centralized Schooling Is Allowed To Exist At All As A Gigantic Indoctrination And Sorting Machine, Robbing People Of Their Children. Did It Really Happen? Was This My Life? God Help Me.

Is There An Idea More Radical In The History Of The Human Race Than Turning Your Children Over To Total Strangers Whom You Know Nothing About, And Having Those Strangers Work On Your Child's Mind, Out Of Your Sight, For A Period Of Twelve Years? Could There Be A More Radical Idea Than That? Back In Colonial Days In America, If You Proposed That Kind Of Idea, They'd Burn You At The Stake, You Mad Person! It's A Mad Idea!

The Truth Is That Schools Don't Really Teach Anything Except How To Obey Orders. This Is A Great Mystery To Me Because Thousands Of Humane, Caring People Work In Schools As Teachers And Aides And Administrators, But The Abstract Logic Of The Institution Overwhelms Their Individual Contributions.