Polly Berrien Berends Quotes

But, if you observe children learning in their first few years of life, you can see that they can and do learn on their own - we leave them alone to crawl, walk, talk, and gain control over their bodies. It happens without much help from parents.

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

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.

It is important for children to learn, whether they want to pursue music or any other field.

Each time one prematurely teaches a child something he could have discovered himself, that child is kept from inventing it and consequently from understanding it completely.

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.

Education demands, then, only this: the utilization of the inner powers of the child for his own instruction.

Adults often assume that most learning is the result of teaching and that exploratory, spontaneous learning is unusual. But actually, spontaneous learning is more fundamental.

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

Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.

Children have to be educated, but they have also to be left to educate themselves.

Experiments show that children in unsupervised groups are capable of answering questions many years ahead of the material they're learning in school. In fact, they seem to enjoy the absence of adult supervision, and they are very confident of finding the right answer.

I just believe that the way that young people's minds develop is fascinating. If you are doing something for a grade or salary or a reward, it doesn't have as much meaning as creating something for yourself and your own life.

If children have interests, then education happens.

Learning is not child's play; we cannot learn without pain.

There is hardly a more heart-thrilling pleasure enjoyed by mortals, than that which parents feel when seeing their child first being able to 'catch knowledge of objects.

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.

It is a monstrous thing to force a child to learn Latin or Greek or mathematics on the ground that they are an indispensable gymnastic for the mental powers. It would be monstrous even if it were true.

Instead of trying to produce a programme to simulate the adult mind, why not rather try to produce one which simulates the child's? If this were then subjected to an appropriate course of education one would obtain the adult brain.

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

Education is not sermonizing to children against their instincts and pleasures, but providing a natural continuity between what they feel and what they can and should be.

The objects in our system are instead a help to the child himself, he chooses what he wants for his own use, and works with it according to his own needs, tendencies and special interests. In this way, the objects become a means of growth.

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

If a child finds no stimuli for the activities which would contribute to his development, he is attracted simply to 'things' and desires to posses them.

There should be no element of slavery in learning. Enforced exercise does no harm to the body, but enforced learning will not stay in the mind. So avoid compulsion, and let your children's lessons take the form of play.