B. F. Skinner Quotes

The development of a child is guaranteed in his curiosity to discover the cause behind each and every incident.

I want to get back to education. When I was in college I paid attention to child psychology portions of our psychology classes. I watch other people work with babies. And I saw the baby as developing like a computer and it intrigued me in my life. I wanted to do that.

Children, by nature, are keen, passionate and curious. What was referred to as laziness is often merely an awakening of sensitivity, a psychological inability to submit to certain absurd duties, and a natural result of the distorted, unbalanced education given to them. This laziness, which leads to an insuperable reluctance to learn, is, contrary to appearances, sometimes proof of intellectual superiority and a condemnation of the teacher.

Children are to be won to follow liberal studies by exhortations and rational motives, and on no account to be forced thereto by whipping.

I love kids, so two things that I have thought about are being a pediatrician or a kindergarten teacher.

I am writing to make sure that kids don't lose very important traits like curiosity that can drive social change because oftentimes I think parents emphasise more on doing well in school, which is important, but perhaps that sometimes comes at the cost of a child's natural curiosity.

We explore our environment, more than we are compelled to utter poetry, when we're toddlers. We start doing that later. Before that happens, every child is a scientist.

The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn.

Kids are born curious about the world. What adults primarily do in the presence of kids is unwittingly thwart the curiosity of children.

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.

Under no condition can you teach curiosity.

People are innately curious.

Just having the hunger to continue to learn motivates me.

Infants and young children are not just sitting twiddling their thumbs, waiting for their parents to teach them to read and do math. They are expending a vast amount of time and effort in exploring and understanding their immediate world. Healthy education supports and encourages this spontaneous learning.

The parent knows that the child cannot be artificially motivated to learn; they know that he is already motivated by the strongest driving force on earth: his inner intent.

The actions of a human being, even of fifteen months of age, may not be without significance to a sympathetic eye.

From the very beginning of his education, the child should experience the joy of discovery.

Let early education be a sort of amusement. You will then be better able to find out the natural bent.

I do not believe there is a method better than Montessori for making children sensitive to the beauties of the world and awakening their curiosity regarding the secrets of life.

Children will learn to do what they want to learn to do.

What induces a child to learn but his delight in knowing?

How defeated and restless the child that is not doing something in which it sees a purpose, a meaning! It is by its self-directed activity that the child, as years pass, finds its work, the thing it wants to do and for which it finally is willing to deny itself pleasure, ease, even sleep and comfort.

If you can light the spark of curiosity in a child, they will learn without any further assistance.

A child is a discoverer. He is an amorphous, splendid being in search of his own proper form.

You know," Daddy said, "it's some that can live their whole life out without asking about it and it's others has to know why it is, and this boy is one of the latters. He's going to be into everything!