Robert M. Hutchins Quotes

Drop out of the public schools. The public schools cannot be compromised with.

We have been taught (that is, schooled) in this country to think of 'success' as synonymous with, or at least dependent upon, 'schooling,' but historically that isn’t true in either an intellectual or a financial sense. And plenty of people throughout the world today find a way to educate themselves without resorting to a system of compulsory secondary schools that all too often resemble prison.

The single most prevalent form of child abuse in this country is the act of sending a child to a government school. We worry incessantly about the separation of church and state. We would do well to devote half as much attention to the separation of government and education.

I've nothing against schools! I'm against compulsory schooling.

As is true for most people I know, I've always loved learning. As is also true for most people I know, I always hated school. Why is that?

School failed me, and I failed the school. It bored me. The teachers behaved like Feldwebel (sergeants). I wanted to learn what I wanted to know, but they wanted me to learn for the exam. What I hated most was the competitive system there, and especially sports. Because of this, I wasn't worth anything, and several times they suggested I leave.

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.

I imagine a school system that recognizes learning is natural, that a love of learning is normal, and that real learning is passionate learning. A school curriculum that values questions above answers...creativity above fact regurgitation...individuality above conformity.. and excellence above standardized performance..... And we must reject all notions of 'reform' that serve up more of the same: more testing, more 'standards', more uniformity, more conformity, more bureaucracy.

I hate, loathe and despise schools.School is bad for you if you have any talent. You should be cultivating that talent in your own particular way.

Do we really need school? I don't mean education, just forced schooling: six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years. Is this deadly routine really necessary? And if so, for what? Don't hide behind reading, writing, and arithmetic as a rationale, because 2 million happy homeschoolers have surely put that banal justification to rest.

I loathed every day and regret every day I spent in school. I like to be taught to read and write and add and then be left alone.

We send our kids off to school to major in labeling and think the ones who do it best deserve the highest grades.

The problem with education is school.

Five years ago, Samira did not want to continue in the regular school system in Iran. To help her with her education, I set up a home school. It wasn't just for my family, it was open to other friends.

I've teamed up with one of the headmasters at Eton College, and we're spearheading a kind of 'slow education movement in Britain'. It's based on this idea of moving away from the fast-food approach to learning and going to something deeper, more woolly, harder to measure.

I was home-schooled.

I was home schooled, so I never got a yearbook.

I wasn't a great student. Just give me a school with no grades, and I'll be happy.

School's not for everyone, but I'm not telling people to leave school.

I've never been a big believer in formal education.

When we home schooled my oldest, Jasper, in eighth grade, I saw how empowering it is for a child to learn in their own way. That rebooted my thinking about education.

Students Are Not Widgets. Schools Are Not Factories.

A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every district ... are the principle support of virtue, morality and civil liberty.

My schedule won't allow me to go to regular school, but I did love public school, and I did experience my first year of middle school in a regular school.

School really didn't work for me.