The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right. And he is, as a rule, overwhelmingly and pompously positive that he is right about what is right.
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton slight rewording (1922), English author, journalist, philosopher, critic
The history of education shows us that every subject of instruction has been taught in various ways, and further, that the contest of methods has not uniformly ended in survival of the fittest.
— Robert Quick (1868), English educationist, author of Essays on Educational Reformers
Half-measures in trying to fix the problems in education can easily turn into second doses of poison, which not only cannot stop the effects of the first, but must surely double them.
— Johann Pestolozzi-slight rewording (1801), influential Swiss educational reformer, school master, author, a founding father of modern elementary school education
Theories and goals of education don't matter a whit if you don't consider your students to be human beings.
— Lou Ann Walker (1986), contemporary American author, editor, professor
What is a good definition? For the philosopher or the scientist, it is a definition which applies to all the objects to be defined, and applies only to them; it is that which satisfies the rules of logic. But in education it is not that; it is one that can be understood by the pupils.
— Henri Poincaré (1906), influential French mathematician, physicist, philosopher, educator, author
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
— Attributed to Aristotle (384 - 322 BCE) by Diogenes Laertius (ca. 3rd Century CE), historian of Greek philosophy
The whole enterprise in a science is to describe the natural world…Education is different because the point there is not to describe the world as it is. The point is to change the world. We want education to change kids. They should know more and be able to do more after they have been to school.
— Daniel Willingham (2012), contemporary American psychologist, educator, author
To leave a subject without having understood the order inherent in it, is to leave it without seizing hold of the most significant and the most useful of its characteristics.
— Arthur E. Bestor, Jr. (1953), American historian, educational critic, author of Educational Wastelands: The Retreat from Learning in Our Public Schools
Before the learner has a notion of the thing itself, it is folly to worry him about its accidents or even its properties, essential or unessential.
— Atrributed by Robert Quick to Wolfgang Ratke (1571 - 1635), German educational reformer, author, aphorisms creator
The mere accumulation of facts and information does not supply what we want. The difference between a wise man and one who is not wise consists less in the things he knows than in the way in which he knows them.
— Sir Joshua Fitch (1880), English educationist, school inspector, author of Lectures on Teaching: Delivered in the Univ. of Cambridge
It has always seemed strange to me that in our endless discussions about education so little stress is laid on the pleasure of becoming an educated person, the enormous interest it adds to life. To be able to be caught up into the world of thought -- that is to be educated.
— Edith Hamilton (1958), American educator, classicist, author, activist
Market forces, so powerful under the right circumstances, are powerless in the domain of public goods. Relying on the magic of the market to reshape public education is like relying on magnets, no matter how powerful, to move wood.
— Matthew Brenner (2011), contemporary American computer scientist-educator, author of The Four Pillars Upon Which the Failure of Math Education Rests (and what to do about them)
Some meanings are “readable” and expressible through literal language; other meanings require literary forms of language; still others demand other forms through which meanings can be represented and share.
…Educational programs aimed at expanding the meanings individuals are able to secure during their lives ought to help students learn to “read” the arts meaningfully as well as the literal and numerical forms of meaning-making, forms that now dominate the aims, content, and time allocated to school programs.
— Elliot Eisner (2002), professor of Art and Education, educationist, reformer, author of The Arts and the Creation of Mind
It is therefore injurious if boys are sent to school for months or years continuously, but are then withdrawn for considerable periods and employed otherwise;
equally so if the teacher commence now one subject, now another, and finish nothing satisfactorily ; and lastly, it is equally fatal if he do not fix a certain task for each hour, and complete it, so that in each period his pupil can make an unmistakable advance towards the desired goal.
Where such a fire is wanting, everything grows cold. Not without reason does the proverb say "Strike while the iron is hot." For if it be allowed to cool it is useless to hammer it, but it must once more be placed in the fire, and thus much time and iron are wasted. Since every time that it is heated, it loses some of its mass.
— John Amos Comenius (1657), influential Czech educator, philosopher, one of the founding fathers of modern education, author of The Great Didactic