Alison Gopnik Quotes

We discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being.

My learning process is by eye alone; it's not at all scientific.

Most learning is not the result of instruction. It is rather the result of unhampered participation in a meaningful setting. Most people learn best by being "with it," yet school makes them identify their personal, cognitive growth with elaborate planning and manipulation.

Creative activity could be described as a type of learning process where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.

One of the things that is very silly - and I hear from educators all the time - is that schools essentially teach kids to learn. They don't need school for that. Learning is what they do best.

The least of the work of learning is done in the classroom.

The ultimate goal of the educational system is to shift to the individual the burden of pursing his own education. This will not be a widely shared pursuit until we get over our odd conviction that education is what goes on in school buildings and nowhere else.

Never let formal education get in the way of your learning.

It was never factually true that young people learn to read or do arithmetic primarily by being taught these things. These things are learned, but not really taught at all. Over-teaching interferes with learning, although the few who survive it may well come to imagine it was by an act of teaching.

You're never going to learn something as profoundly as when it's purely out of curiosity

I call myself a teacher because they want me to call myself a teacher, but actually, what I'm doing is I'm studying.

I didn't go to school much, so I taught myself what I knew from reading.

Participation, I think, or one of the best methods of educating.

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.

Learners are encouraged to discover facts and relationships for themselves.

Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.

I used to be really insecure about my self-education. I'm definitely always learning. But there's many ways to learn. There are many, many ways to always be a learner.

Teaching can be learning, especially if student curiosity with the question 'What's going on here?' can be elicited.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

All learning is in the learner, not in the teacher.

I don't like books that seem to want to teach me things. Which is not to say that one doesn't learn from books - but you do your own learning in your own way.

Are any of us self-taught? It just means I didn't go to school for it. But you do have teachers. You have mentors.

I don't learn as well, I think, in like a structured way. I kind of have to be thrown into it.

The number one goal of teachers should be to help students learn how to learn.

Education is what you must acquire without any interference from your schooling.