Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Don't limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time.

Regarding any educator at any level, in any capacity, and in any kind of economic region, who is not making an effort to be extremely computer-savvy. . . . shame on you.

I know first-hand what kind of travesties can occur when an administrator doesn't know anything about a computer, and I think it's disgraceful to be in this business and not know what the students have known for years, even the tiny ones. It would be difficult to respect an "educator" who was, himself/herself, not educated in the very necessary "today" and "tomorrow" skill of simple computer literacy. Holy scheisse, what are some of these people THINKING?

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." --Alvin Toffler

"It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry." --Albert Einstein

"Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education; they grow there, firm as weeds among rocks." --Charlotte Bronte

"In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists." --Eric Hoffer

"There is no greater crime than to stand between a man and his development; to take any law or institution and put it around him like a collar, and fasten it there, so that as he grows and enlarges, he presses against it till he suffocates and dies." --Henry Ward Beecher

"Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war." --Maria Montessori

"Too often we give our children answers to remember rather than problems to solve." --Roger Lewin

"The joy of learning is as indispensable in study as breathing is in running. Where it is lacking there are no real students, but only poor caricatures of apprentices who, at the end of their apprenticeship, will not even have a trade." --Simone Weil

Oh, and by the way, don't try to use the excuse that you're "too old to learn new tricks." If that is really true, get out of our schools NOW. You are no longer needed there.