"Teaching is the best way to learn, I'm still convinced of that; by passing on our knowledge we continue to discover and learn. Moreover, this activity forces us each time to a new formulation of what we want to express, forces us to new [attempts], [a] constant search of new methods. The constant links with youth helps us to always have a youthful outlook, make us able to surprise ourselves constantly.." ---Erno Rubik, inventor of Rubik's Cube, London speech, 1/31/81. http://cubeland.free.fr/infos/ernorubik.htm "Me and a couple of my friends ... we know that the FCAT is a very important part of schooling in Florida and we were wondering if you could answer one of the questions we remember from the FCAT? What are the angles on a three-four-five-triangle?" ---Florida HS student Luana Marques "The angles would be... If I was going to guess... Three-four-five. Three-four-five. I don't know, 125, 90 and whatever remains on 180?" --Florida Governor Jeb Bush (July, 2004) "The ESEA [No Child Left Behind Act] is like a Russian novel. That's because it's long, it's complicated, and in the end, everybody gets killed." --Scott Howard, former superintendent, Perry, Ohio, public schools Children are not naturally stupid--they have to pick up stupidity from the adults around them. ---Ed Barbeau "The Mathematicks, though not absolutely necessary to a Devine in the way of his Profession, yet has a great Influence upon his Studies; it gives him a Habit of Thinking abstractedly upon every Subject; enduces him with with Patience to investigate the most knotty Problems, for the sole Pleasure of finding out the Truth; and is useful in explaining most other Sciences." ---The London Tradesman, published in 1747, "for the Information of PARENTS, and Instruction of YOUTH in their Choice of Business." It has to do with preparation for, "the first learned science, divinity." "It is somewhat paradoxical that given the vast resources devoted each year to improving education in our colleges, so basic a problem [as grade inflation] has remained unrepaired for so long." --"Grade Inflation" by Valen E. Johnson (Springer, 2003) "Suppose that I were desperately ill and through some miracle could secure as a physician either Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, or a young doctor just out of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Hippocrates was undoubtedly a great physician in his day; but I of course would take the young man just out of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine with his equipment of the latest facts and principles and techniques in his field. Now let us assume another possible choice. Let us say that I have been commissioned to employ a teacher for a group of boys and that, through some miracle, I am able to secure either Socrates or the latest Ph.D. from Teachers College, the latter with his knowledge of psychology and of the latest findings of educational science. With all due loyalty to my own institution and its products, I am fairly certain that I would jump at the chance to get Socrates." ---William Chandler Bagley (1874-1946) Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University (1917-40). "Education is not filling a bucket but lighting a fire." --William Butler Yeats "C students run the world" --Harry Truman A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimension. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes "It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copybooks and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilisation advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle--they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments."-- A.N. Whitehead ``The ultimate goal of mathematics is to eliminate any need for intelligent thought.'' --A. N. Whitehead you must sit at the table yet awhile because the food that you have taken in is tough and takes time to assimilate. Open your mind to what I shall reveal and seal it in, for to have understood and not retained, as knowledge does not count. --Dante "Paradise" (Canto V, 37-42) "Education is one of the only enterprises where the customer demands less." "Inspiration is a cat. It never comes when you call it, but just try to get something else done when it wants your attention." "It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein "The only thing one can do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself." --Oscar Wilde "A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring." "I graduated from Douglass College without distinction. I was in the top 98% of my class and damn glad to be there. I slept in the library and daydreamed my way through history lecture. I failed math twice, never fully grasping probability theory. I mean, first off, who cares if you pick a black ball or a white ball out of the bag? And second, if you're bent over about the color, don't leave it to chance. Look in the damn bag and pick the color you want." ---*Hard Eight*, p. 218. (A Stephanie Plum novel) *In a course for preservice elementary teachers:* Professor: Give me a simple word problem that illustrates 3 x 5 = 15. Student: Mary had 3 apples. John had 5 apples. They multiplied them and had 15 apples in all. "The tough problem is not in identifying winners; it is in making winners out of ordinary people. That, after all, is the overwhelming purpose of education. Yet historically, in most of the periods emphasizing excellence, education has reverted to selecting winners rather than creating them." --K. Patricia Cross "Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten." "Human attention may be the ultimate scarce resource." -- Andrew M. Odlyzko, *Internet pricing and the history of communications* "Don't fight the problem." George C. Marshall Bob Witte's First Law of Educational Productivity: "If you work on the wrong problem, no matter how hard you work, you will never be successful." Corollary: If everyone who works on the problem is ill-informed, you will get a stupid answer." "If things are bad enough, you don't need to be very good to be a lot better." ---Bob Witte "A lesson is like a swiftly flowing river; when you're teaching you must make judgements instantly." --Japanese Teacher "You can't teach what you don't know any more than you can come back from where you ain't been." ---Will Rogers The Past Isn't What it Used To Be by Bruce Elliott A professor of Physics named May Complains of the classroom today, "The problem, you know, Is that they're too slow. We were far better students than they." His friend, a professor named Beecham, Said "It's true, you don't seem to reach 'em. But they're not to blame, For they haven't the same Class of teachers that we had, to teach 'em!" "If there are any more ways I can make this more confusing, please let me know." --- Robert Dorsett "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, in practice there is." --- Yogi Berra "An education is nice, but material things are better." --Outpost.com "It is true that all 50 states do not have high-quality rigorous exams based on their standards," said Bruce Hunter, public policy director for the American Association of School Administrators. "But you can tell that without using NAEP as a benchmark. Our position is that we don't want a national test"... "Anything a faculty member can learn, a student can learn easily." ---Richard Hamming "Bitte vergiss alles, was Du auf der Schule gelernt hast; denn Du hast es nicht gelernt." ---Edmund Landau ["Please forget everything that you have learned in school; for you haven't learned it."] "Don't let schooling get in the way of your education." ---Mark Twain "The impression is that, through some bad old custom or some bad new pressure, professors have acquired a special privilege which they do not need and should not have. On the contrary, academic freedom is indispensable to the central function of the university. The main task of the university is candid and courageous thinking about important issues." --- Robert Hutchins, "The purpose of a university is to provide sex for the students, athletics for the alumni, and parking for the professors." --- Clark Kerr (attr.) "I once saw a very young foal trying to eat some most objectionable refuse, and unable to make up its mind whether it was good or no. Clearly it wanted to be told. If its mother had seen what it was doing she would have set it right in a moment, and as soon as ever it had been told that what it was eating was filth, the foal would have recognised it and never have wanted to be told again; but the foal cold not settle the matter for itself, or make up its mind whether it liked what it was trying to eat or no, without assistance from without. I suppose it would have come to do so by-and-by, but it was wasting time and trouble, which a single look from its mother would have saved, just as wort will in time ferment of itself, but will ferment much more quickly if a little yeast be added to it..." ---from Chapter LVI of *The Way of All Flesh*, by Samuel Butler. "To remove ignorance is the sole duty of the school. To fail in that battle when the enemy is by nature inactive, when your troops are numbered in the ten thousands, and when you have spent billions on equipment is to suffer a stupid defeat." -- Jacques Barzun.