Noam Chomsky Quotes

We must reject all notions of 'reform' that serve up more of the same: more testing, more 'standards', more uniformity, more conformity, more bureaucracy.

The student is infinitely more important than the subject matter.

I see by the papers that you have once more stirred that pool of intellectual stagnation, the educational convention.

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.

Arne Duncan is done more to bring our educational system, sometimes kicking and screaming, into the 21st century than anyone else.

It means an educational system which does not simply equip the students to adjust to society, but which enables the student to challenge and to modify, and at times reject, if necessary, the received wisdom of his elders.

The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil. It is not for you to choose what he shall know, what he shall do. It is chosen and foreordained and he only holds the key to his own secret.

I don't think too much about how it might exist in the world in a commercial sense - I more just try and focus on making music that I love and trying to put it out into the world.

When my head is in the typewriter the last thing on my mind is some imaginary reader. I don't have an audience; I have a set of standards.

To improve our schools, we have to humanize them and make education personal to every student and teacher in the system. Education is always about relationships. Great teachers are not just instructors and test administrators: They are mentors, coaches, motivators, and lifelong sources of inspiration to their students.

There have been many measures taken to try to turn the educational system towards more control, more indoctrination, more vocational training, imposing a debt, which traps students and young people into a life of conformity... That's the exact opposite of [what] traditionally comes out of The Enlightenment. And there's a constant struggle between those. In the colleges, in the schools, do you train for passing tests, or do you train for creative inquiry?

I believe that education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform.

You need space to try things and create. It takes a long time to recalibrate if you let people pull at you all the time. A lot of stress comes from reacting to stuff. You have to keep a certain guard [up], if you're a creative person.

Our system of education is locked in a time capsule. You want to say to the people in charge, 'You're not using today's tools! Wake up!'

The best ideas lose their owners and take on lives of their own.

Everyone is always trying to figure out the future of film distribution. I try and not spend too much time worrying about things like this and just try to focus on making the best work I can to entertain me and my friends.

It sometimes seems as though we were trying to combine the ideal of no schools at all with the democratic ideal of schools for everybody by having schools without education.

Pedagogues: More than any other class of blind leaders of the blind they are responsible for the degrading standardization which now afflicts the American people.

Follow your musical instincts. Do what you feel is right. Don't be relegated to a certain category.

There's all of this stuff where we have so much debate over nonsense; it could be cured if we had a better educational system, if we trained people to really try and look into things on their own. That's a tough thing to do, particularly with the educational system staggering.

If I am to write, I must have a room to myself, which shall be my room.

Art can make a difference because it pulls people up short. It says, don't accept things for their face value; you don't have to go along with any of this; you can think for yourself.

I focus my energies more so on staying original.

When I'm sitting at my computer writing, I really have this fiendish smile on my face. I am not thinking about the past or the future or how it's going to be received. I feel that I'm very lucky that way; I don't carry that particular anxiety around with me. I'm not anxiety-free by any means, but that happens to be one that I've been spared.

Good teaching is forever being on the cutting edge of a child's competence.