John Taylor Gatto Quotes

A good education should leave much to be desired.

Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth.

My university work was not central to my education.

Anyone who has passed though the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape.

It's always extremely interesting to speak at colleges. My books are taught in many colleges in America and are part of the educational system, so it's really important to me. I don't believe in so many things in life, but something I believe in is education.

I think studies are really important and shouldn't be compromised.

I wonder whether if I had an education I should have been more or less a fool that I am.

The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done.

I come from a background that stresses education more than anything.

Going to college is neither necessary nor sufficient to be well-educated.

My parents made it clear that I should never display even the slightest disrespect to individuals who had the power to let me skip a half grade or move into more challenging classes. While it was all right for me to know more about a topic than my sixth-grade teacher had ever learned, questioning her facts could only lead to trouble.

How you do in school determines how you do in life.

The goal of education is not to increase the amount of knowledge but to create the possibilities for a child to invent and discover, to create men who are capable of doing new things.

What did you learn in school that you still use today? Go ahead teachers, tell me. What? Fear, conformity, don't question authority.

No group and no government can properly prescribe precisely what should constitute the body of knowledge with which true education is concerned.

Rules equal boredom, and I don't like that.

The child who desires education will be bettered by it; the child who dislikes it disgraced.

A human being is not attaining his full heights until he is educated.

An educated people can be easily governed.

I need a teacher quite as much as Helen. I know the education of this child will be the distinguishing event of my life, if I have the brains and perseverance to accomplish it.

Education is the process in which we discover that learning adds quality to our lives. Learning must be experienced.

Let us not, in the eagerness of our haste to educate, forget all the ends of education.

As the true object of education is not to render the pupil the mere copy of his preceptor, it is rather to be rejoiced in, than lamented, that various reading should lead him into new trains of thinking.

Memory and creativity are essential to education, but if you teach memory incorrectly, it is a total waste of time, and it will inhibit learning.

The crucial question one comes back to is the examination; without that experience is meaningless. And I think it's true that society is becoming more and more passive, less and less fired up with enthusiasm, in many spheres.