Education quotations of the week (11-11-09)

My apologies to those readers who e-mailed me asking why the quotations of the week weren’t up on Monday. This week I have another mish-mash of favorites from over the years…

It also was clear in my mind that schools in the slums would have to develop within the faculty “cadres of conscience” with regard to disadvantaged children. Too many teachers had prejudiced and ugly attitudes about children that went unchallenged by other teachers. These other teachers would have to speak up. (Gerry Rosenfeld, from page 92 of his 1983 book, Shut Those Thick Lips: A Study of Slum School Failure)

When it comes to improving Richmond’s public schools, Superintendent Albert Williams has no use for chickens. He wants pigs. A chicken makes a contribution to a ham-and-egg breakfast, Williams said. But the pig’s role requires a more personal commitment. “I’m not seeking contributions,” the folksy superintendent told the gathering of about 225 people at Virginia Union University. “I’m seeking sacrifices.” (from the Richmond Times-Dispatch, April 23, 1998)

Teachers subject to burnout are those who are involved, devoted, and conscientious. (Bernd Rudow, from his chapter in the 2008 book, Understanding and Preventing Teacher Burnout, edited by Roland Vandenberghe and  A. Michael Huberman)

The advantage of a classical education is that it enables you to despise the wealth that it prevents you from achieving. (Russell Green)

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power. (Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to William Charles Jarvis, September 28, 1820)