Education

"Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education." Mark Twain

"To teach our kids how to run our country, before they are called upon to run our country... if we don't, someone else will run our country." Richard Dreyfuss

"Perhaps the prevalence of pedantry may be largely accounted for by the common error of thinking that, because useful knowledge should be remembered, any kind of knowledge that is at all worth learning should be remembered too." Albert Jay Nock

"Then why do you want to know?" "Because learning does not consist only of knowing what we must or we can do, but also of knowing what we could do and perhaps should not do." Umberto Eco

"Childhood is analogous to language learning. It has a biological basis but cannot be realized unless a social environment triggers and nurtures it, that is, has need of it. If a culture is dominated by a medium that requires the segregation of the young in order that they learn unnatural, specialized, and complex skills and attitudes, then childhood, in one form or another, will emerge, articulate and indispensable." Neil Postman

"The policy of letting the child 'do what he likes' is an insidious one, since the children are encouraged to continue always at their original superficial level, without receiving guidance in study. Furthermore, the 'three Rs,' the fundamental tools, are neglected as long as possible, with the result that the child's chance to develop his mind is greatly retarded. The policy of teaching words via pictures instead of by the alphabet tends to deprive the young child of the greatest reasoning tool of all." Murray Rothbard

"What kinds of things and people might learners want to be in contact with in order to learn?" Ivan Illich

"If you don't know, the thing to do is not to get scared, but to learn." Ayn Rand

"The country that consistently ranks among the highest in educational achievement is Finland. A rich country, but education is free. Germany, education is free. France, education is free." Noam Chomsky