Quotes to 'Re-Imagine' Schools for the 21stC
Leading and Learning for the 21stC
This is the second edition of quotes we have complied to complement the philosophy that
underpins our website www.leading-learning.co.nz
We believe that the quotes provide unified collection of thoughtful ideas to transform education.
It is often said that we are entering the 'Information Age' but we prefer to believe that we are
entering an 'Age of Ideas, Talent and Creativity'. We present the quotes as part of on ongoing
dialogue to give all who read them the courage to transform schools so as to meet the exciting
challenges of the 21stC.
One suggestion is to as a staff reflect on the quotes in any one section (or any selected quotes)
and discuss what they might mean for your school. Others people select suitable quotes for
school newsletters of school brochures and other school documents.
'We now know enough about how people learn that no child need fail if we changed our minds
first. We need new minds for a new millennium'. Bruce Hammonds
As with the previous compilation we have arranged them under arbitrary headings for your
convenience. It is interesting to note that our quotes are the most popular pages on our site.
General Philosophy
School as a Learning Community
Teaching and
Learning
Vision, Values and School Culture
Curriculum
The Change Process
Creativity
Leadership and Teamwork
Powerful Learners
General Philosophy
We believe it is important that a school be 'led' by a set of agreed shared beliefs. To achieve
this staff and community need to enter into 'learning conversation's to define and articulate such
a philosophy. As it is said: If you stand for nothing you will fall for anything' or 'Control your own
destiny or someone else will'.
'What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all
its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon it destroys our
democracy.' John Dewey
'We need a metamorphosis of education - from the cocoon a butterfly should emerge.
Improvement does not give us a butterfly only a faster caterpillar.' Learning to Learn
www.learningtolearn.sa.edu.au
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'No problem can be solved by the same consciousness that created it. We need to see the world
anew.' Albert Einstein
'Insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting the different results' Albert
Einstein.
'Some people would rather die than think'. Bertrand Russell
'If we always do what we've always done, we will get what we've always got.' Adam Urbanski
'One can never consent to creep when one feels the compulsion to soar'. Helen Keller
'Man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.' Oliver Wendell
Holmes Jnr
'Ten geographers who think the world is flat will tend to reinforce each others errors….Only a
sailor can set them straight'. John Ralston Saul, 'Voltaire's Bastards'.
'The faithful witness, like…Socrates, Voltaire, and Swift and Christ himself, is at his best when
he is questioning and clarifying and avoiding the specialists obsession with solution. He betrays
society when he is silent…He is true to himself and to people when his clarity causes disquiet.'
John Ralston Saul 'Voltaire's Bastards'
'Anecdotes, personal stories, reminiscences, like biblical parables, are the medium through which
faith is restored. Stories are a form of poetry, and give us a saving image to personally relate to.'
Peter Block Business Philosopher
'Wordsmiths who serve established power…castrate the public imagination by subjecting language
to a complexity which renders it private. Elitism is always their aim.' John Ralston Paul,
'Voltaire's Bastards.'
'It is today we must create the world of the future.' Eleanor Roosevelt
'The human mind treats a new idea the way a body treats a strange problem it rejects it.' Sir
Peter Medawar
'Some folks are wise, some are otherwise'. Tobies George Smollett
To arrive at the simplest truth requires years of contemplation.' Isaac Newton
'Those who do nothing are never wrong.' Theodore de Bouville
'The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.' From the Go -Between
'We are natural mind changing entities until we are 10 or so. But as we get older…then it is very
hard to change our minds'. Howard Gardner
'Fundamentalism is a kind of decision not to change your mind about something…Many of us is
fundamentalists…because it worked pretty well for us.' Howard Gardner
'Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail'. Ralph
Waldo Emerson
'The world by and large has to be reinvented.' Charles Handy in 'Beyond Certainty'.
'There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life.' Frederico Fellini
Film Director
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'Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge'. Winston Churchill
'There is nothing as useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.' Peter
Drucker Business Philosopher.
'Don't try to innovate for the future. Innovate for the present.' Peter Drucker
'I believe that revolutionary chaos may yet crystallize into new life forms.' M Gorbachev
'Chaos breeds life, where order breeds habit,' Henry Brooks US Historian
'Is anybody alive out there?' Bruce Springsteen to the crowd.
'It is impossible to soar like an eagle if you are surrounded by turkeys' Anon
'Every actual state is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well.' Ralph Waldo Emerson
'Complexity creates confusion, simplicity focus.' Edward de Bono
'To simplify you have to clarify. Simplification is the new competitive advantage' Jack Trout
'Simplicity'
'Our life is frittered away by detail.. simplicity simplicity, simplicity.' Henry Thoreau
'We need to be the authors of our own life.' Peter Senge
'We have banished our artists to the fringe of society and tell them to eat cake. It is our artists
who choose freedom over safety and use their talents to question and confront the culture.'
Peter Block, Philosopher
'We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming'. Verner von Braun
'First define, then refine'. Bill Guild NZ Pioneer teacher
'Everything of importance has been said by someone who didn't invent it.' Alfred North
Whitehead.
'How has the world of the child changed in the last 150 years?' … the answer is. 'It's hard to
imagine any way in which it hasn't changed….they're' immersed in all kinds of stuff that was
unheard of 150years ago, and yet if you look at schools today versus 100 years ago, they are more
similar than dissimilar'. Peter Senge
''Educating the masses was intended only to improve the relationship between the top and the
bottom of society. Not for changing the nature of the relationship.' John Ralston Paul 'Voltaire's
Bastards.'
'The conduct of schools, based upon a new order of conception, is so much more difficult than is
the management of schools which walk the beaten path.' John Dewey
'Much educational change is akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic'. Anon
Being on tightrope is living; everything else is waiting.' Karl 'The Great' Wallenda
'A pessimist is a person who looks both ways before crossing a one way road.' L Peters
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars.' Les Brown
In the end we will have had enough of cynicism and skepticism and humbug and we shall want to
live more musically.' Vincent van Gogh
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'It is difficult to know what a fish talk about but you can be sure it isn't about water'.
'We can make the trains run on time but if they are not going where we want them to go, why
bother?' Neil Postman
'The development of a tree depends on where it is planted.' Edward Joyner Yale Univ. School
'We each create our world by what we choose to notice, creating a world of distinction that
makes sense to us. We then 'see' the world through the self we have created.' Margaret
Wheatley and Kellner Rogers
Unlike puppets we have the possibility of stopping in our movements, looking up and perceiving the
machinery by which we have been moved. In this act lies the first steps towards freedom.' Peter
Berger Sociologist
'It is always the minorities who aren't part of a mainstream who define what the limits…of the
majority are going to be.' Rose Elizabeth Bird, US Chief Justice, California
'The East contemplated the forest the West counted the trees…the mind that knows that trees
and the forest is a new mind.' Marilyn Ferguson
Bureaucracies are beautiful mechanisms for the evasion of responsibilities and guilt.' Warren
Bennis Leadership expert
' I know of no other safe depository of the ultimate power of society but the people themselves
and if we think ( the people) not enlightened enough to exercise that control with a wholesome
discretion the remedy is not to take it from them , but to inform their discretion by education'.
Thomas Jefferson 1820
'A little revolution now and then is a good thing.' Thomas Jefferson
'Slow down you are going too fast'. Simon and Garfunkle
'The world is crazier and more of it than we think, incorrigibly plural.' Louis MacNeice Author
'You may feel like a voice in the wilderness, but it is your voice we are waiting to hear…you are
the determining factor.' Neale Donald Walsh Author
'Courage is the first of human virtues because it makes all others possible.' Aristotle
'Teach us to walk the soft Earth as relatives to all that live there.' Sioux Indian saying
'Everything important is already known, the only thing is to rediscover it.' Anon
'Every reform was once private opinion.' Ralph Waldo Emerson
'Those of us who are old can afford to live dangerously. We have less to lose.' Maggie Kuhn Grey
Panthers
'Age is compulsory, wisdom is optional'. Anon
'The most potent force for change …is the growing recognition of millions of adults that there
own impoverishment came from a large measure, from their schooling.' Aquarian Conspiracy.
'Some of us are just less damaged than others.' ( by schooling) Buckminster Fuller
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'An impressive proportion of great, original thinkers were educated at home…stimulated (and)
born up by high expectations' Aquarian Conspiracy
'Home is the first school for us all, a school with no fixed curriculum, no quality control, no
examinations, no teacher training' Charles Handy
'When the spirit of people is strong focused and vibrant, wonderful things happen'. Harrison
Owen
'Present thinking people kill the future.' Ken Blanchard ,Business Consultant
'If you can change your mind, you can change the world.' Joey Reimer Creativity Guru
'When I was young I thought that people at the top really understood what the hell was
happening…now I know they don't know.' David Mahoney
'The first people had the questions, and they were free. The second people had answers, and they
became enslaved.' Wind Eagle Modern Indian Medicine Woman
'I imagine a school system that recognizes learning is natural, that a love of learning is normal,
and that real learning is passionate learning. A school curriculum that values questions above
answers…creativity above fact regurgitation…individuality above conformity.. and excellence
above standardized performance….. And we must reject all notions of 'reform' that serve up
more of the same: more testing, more 'standards', more uniformity, more conformity, more
bureaucracy. Tom Peters Author 'Re-imagine' www.tompeters.com
'We are all carriers of our own stories. We have never trusted our own voices. Reforms came, but
we don't make them. They were presented by people removed from schools, by 'experts'. Such
changes bi passes school. School by school changes, however slow, could make a powerful
difference.' Deborah Meier, 'Good Schools are Still Possible
'The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet.' William Gibson
'Reformation comes from the bottom up - a transformation demanded by the people.' Religious
writer
'Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind' Thomas
Jefferson
'Life can only be understood backwards but you have to live it forward. You can only do that by
stepping into uncertainty and by trying, within this uncertainty, to create your own islands of
security….The new security will be a belief that …if this doesn't work out you could do something
else'. You are your own security'. Charles Handy Business Philosopher.
'The homogenization of cultural diversity and the destruction of cultural history are central
forces underlying societal breakdown worldwide'…… what is the deepest and most profound force
driving change , I'd say it is the awareness, however dim and ill formed , that we are in deep
trouble…The first step is to realize everything is interrelated.' Peter Senge 'Through the Eye of
the Needle'
'The slick houses and holiday homes of the rich hiding the despair of the poor.' Anon
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'We have been through a period when knowledge was fragmented, but dreams of coherence
survived….. the expanding edges of fields…are closer to each other than are the central cores.'
Carnegie Foundation/Teaching 77.
'We have been the benefactors of our cultural heritage and the victims of our cultural
narrowness.' Stanley Kripper Psychologist
'What we thought was the horizon of our potential turns out to be only the foreground.' Tom
Roberts Educator
'We will not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.' T S Eliot 'Little Gidding'
'The centre falls about. The centre cannot hold.' W B Yeats
'Chaos breeds life, while order breeds success.' Franklin P Adams
'Human solidarity is the necessary condition for the unfolding of any one individual' Erich Fromm
'What is to give life must endure burning.' Victor Frankl
'Those who have most at stake in the old culture, or are most rigid in their beliefs, try to summon
people back to the old ideas.' Marilyn Ferguson
'The map is not the territory.' Alfred Korzybski /Semanticist
'We are told not to cross a bridges until we come to it, but this world is owned by men who have
crossed bridges far ahead of the crowd,' Anon
'If I knew what was going to happen in ten years I would do it now. I just follow my nose.'
Stephen Hawkins Physicist
'Fall in love with your life's work again, my fiend, or your energy will wane, your voice will falter
and there will be nothing to prove but the fact that you are taking up valuable space.' Anon
'Carpenters bend wood fletchers bend arrows; wise men fashion themselves.' Buddha
'In the end we shall have had enough cynicism and skepticism and humbug, and we shall want to
live life more musically.' Vincent van Gogh
'Do not go where the path may lead; go where there is no path and leave a trail.' Ralph Waldo
Emerson
'If you are looking for a big opportunity, find a big problem.' Anon
'Being on the tightrope is living; everything else is waiting.' Karl 'The Great' Wallenda
'Choices in life are rarely pure, but to understand the middle ground it is helpful to imagine the
extremes.' Peter Berger, Sociologist
Top of Page
The School as a Learning Community
page 6 of 32
For the past decade or so we have seen schools being forced to comply to a business managerial
ideology that has all but crushed the common sense and creativity of innovative teachers and
schools. We believe now is the time to reclaim schools as democratic learning communities based
on shared values and teaching beliefs that realize the gifts and talents of all students.
'Secondary education is a more purely industrial age institution than any business.' Peter Senge
'The School That Learns'
(Our large schools)..are organized like a factory of the late 19th C : top down, command control
management, a system designed to stifle creativity and independent judgment.' David T Kearns
CEO Xerox
'Most schools are drowning in events…An attention deficit culture' Peter Senge
'If we remain wedded to the way education is currently provided we cannot imagine other ways..
we need some imagination , some fantasy, some new ways of thinking - some magic in fact' Hedley
Beare Prof of Educ Melbourne
'We must act as if our institutions are ours to create, our learning is ours to define, our
leadership we seek is ours to become. Peter Block Philosopher
'Many of our schools are good schools if only this were 1965'. Louise Stoll and Dean Fink
'If we want to create a workplace that values idealism, human connection, and real, in depth
learning, we will have to create it ourselves'. Peter Block
'It is a tragedy that, for most of us, school is not a place for deepening our sense of who we are
and what we are committed to. If it were, think of the lasting changes it would have made.' Peter
Senge
'All human beings are born with unique gifts. The healthy functioning of our community depends
on its capacity to develop each gift.' Peter Senge 'The Learning School.'
'Parents and educators…need to establish a culture in which security and clarity of expectations
are balanced with the encouragement of playfulness, inquisitiveness and self reliance.' Guy
Claxton in 'Wise -Up' 'In high performing schools…Teachers feel invigorated, challenged,
professionally engaged, and empowered just because they are there.' Margaret Arbuckle US
educator
'It is strange perhaps to realize that most people have a desire to love their organizations. They
love the purpose of their school....They fall in love with the identity that is trying to be
expressed. They connect to the founding vision.' Margaret Wheatley and Kellner Rogers
'The guiding principle being put forward is that schools must be self directing.' John Goodland
'As the world becomes more inter-connected organizations that will truly excel in the future will
be ( those)... that discover how to tap people's commitment and capacity to learn.' Peter Senge
'The Fifth Discipline'
'Stories are the most effective ways of changing minds...there has to be a protagonist. There has
to be a goal. There have to be obstacles people can identify with. There has to be an ultimate
resolution - hopefully a positive one...what leaders do is put aside or reject the old story, the
story you have grown up with. Leaders say, 'No it's a different story. You may not like it initially,
page 7 of 32
but it's a better story in the long run, and you have to go with it and here is why...' . Howard
Gardner 2004 'The Art and Science of Changing Peoples Minds.
'We can create our own characters and write our own script, if properly taught: 'In a very real
sense...human being create themselves' and school can be stage on which children work through
the plot, rehearse their roles, learn the cues, create social functions, try out their 'ideal selves'
for size, play hero parts which demonstrate their capability for greatness.' Jerry Starratt
Expert School Leadership
'Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only
thing that ever has.' Margaret Mead
'Umuatu ngumuntu naga antu' 'A person is a person because of other people.' Zulu saying
'Ones actions ought to come from achieved stillness: not rushing on.' D H Lawrence
'It is difficult to know what a fish talks about, but you can be sure it is not about water.' Old
joke
'We are truly the fish in the water of industrial age assumptions' Peter Senge
'Culture is the underground stream of norms, values, beliefs, traditions, and rituals that builds up
over time as people work together, solve problems, and confront challenges .This set of informal
expectations and values shapes how people think, feel, and act in schools.' Deal and Patterson 98
'Some schools develop 'toxic' cultures which actively discourage efforts to improve teaching or
student achievement.' Deal and Patterson 98
Kettering (US inventor) has little time for conventional education. He thought genuine innovators
were hobbled more than helped by what they had learned in school. Overly educated people were
least likely to make new discoveries...they were too intent on doing things the way they had been
taught.' Farson and Keynes 'Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins.'
'Progress seldom leads to serenity, nor should it. A serene workforce is unlikely to try new things
.Creative workers gripe a lot but at a high level...They are concerned about having the leeway and
support to be create something new. They want their talents to be utilized. They crave a
challenge'. Farston and Keynes 'Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins.'
'This acceptance ( that neither success or failure are what it seems to be) produces work
environments that are genuinely risk friendly, which is to say failure tolerant...Those who are
passionately engaged in a task they care about are the ones most likely to achieve success...This
is the samurai way.' Farson and Keyes 'Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins'.
Life is like a cobweb, not an organizing chart.' Ross Perot US Computer Businessman
Top of Page
Vision, Values and School Culture
We need to, after a decade of individualism and greed, return to values and behaviors that are
respectful of each other, other cultures and our environment. School have to escape from an over
emphasis on individualism and efficiency and return to valuing the democratic virtues that
contribute to the common good of all people and cultures.
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'We can easily forgive a child whom is frightened of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when
men are afraid of the light.' Plato
'The moral sense, or conscience, is as much part of a man as his leg or arm. It is given to all in a
stronger or weaker degree.. It may be strengthened by exercise. Thomas Jefferson
' I am entirely certain that twenty years from now we will look back at education as it is
practiced in most schools today and wonder how we could tolerated anything so primitive.' John
W Gardner
'It is not who you attend school with but who controls the school you attend.' Nick Giovanni US
Poet
'Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land amongst the stars.' Les Brown
'You see things and say 'Why'? But I see things and say 'Why not?' G.B Shaw
'Ones vision is not a roadmap but a compass'. Peter Block Business Philosopher
'The pathway to educational excellence lies within each school.' Terrance Deal
'One of the saddest things about US education is that the wisdom of our most successful
teachers is lost to the profession when they retire.' John Dewey
'If people who have to work together in an enterprise trust one another it is because they are all
operating to a common set of ethical norms....such a society will be better able to innovate...since
the high degree of trust will permit a wide variety of social relationships to emerge...' Fukuyama
95 Trust
'We imagine a school in which students and teachers excitedly and joyfully stretch themselves to
their limits in pursuit of projects built on their vision...not one that succeeds in making apathetic
students satisfying minimal standards.' S Papert
'It is our dream that students will ...experience their classrooms as invigorating, even inspiring
environments - places they look forward to going to and places they hate to leave. It is our dream
that they will come to know themselves as masters of various crafts...It is our dreams that ...they
will come to love the process of learning itself... by making it their own.' Paideia Schools
'Too many young people are being taught to give up their dreams before they have any experience
attempting to pursue them'. Robert Fritz 'The Path of Least Resistance'
'It takes courage and skill to be unambiguous and clear.' Peter Senge
'A shared vision is not an idea...it is rather, a force in people's hearts...at its simplest level, a
shared vision is the answer to the question 'What do we want to create?' Peter Senge
'We need a multiplicity of visions, dreams and prophecies - images of potential tomorrows.' Alvin
Tofler
'I believe we are afraid of recognizing how fundamental our lives would have to be changed if we
should choose to work out of this vision.' Ralph Theobald
We need to value the importance of simplicity, focus and living according to our values.' Phillip
Humbert www.philliphumbet.com
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'It is not so much about to see what no one has seen before but to think what nobody has yet
thought about that which everybody sees.' Schopenhauer
'Thinking School; Thinking Nation' Singapore Educational Vision
'Love is saying yes to belonging' David Steindle -Rast ( Theologist)
'We can no longer stand at the end of something we visualized in detail and plan backwards from
that future. Instead we must stand at the beginning, clear in our mind, with a willingness to be
involved in discovery... it asks that we participate rather than plan.' Margaret Wheatley and
Kellner -Rogers.
'New frameworks are like climbing a mountain - the larger view encompasses rather than rejects
the more restricted view.' Einstein
'the void in our society has been produced by the absence of values... we have no widespread
belief in the value of participation. The rational system has made us fear standing out in any
serious way.' John Ralston Saul 'Voltaire's Bastards'.
'Principles are deep fundamental truths... lightly interwoven threads running with exactness,
consistency, beauty and strength through the fabric of life.' Steven Covey 92
'Education without values, as useful as it is, seems to make a man more clever devil.' C S Lewis
'A clever arrangement of bad eggs will never make a good omelet.' C S Lewis
'The heart and soul of school culture is what people believe, the assumptions they make about
how school works.' Thomas Sergiovanni
'It is what teachers think, what teachers do, and what teachers are at the level of the classroom
that ultimately shapes the kind of learning that young people get.' Andy Hargreaves and Michael
Fullan
'Positive images of the future are a powerful and magnetic force... They draw us on and energize
us, give us courage and will to take on important initiatives. Negative images of the future also
have a magnetism. They pull the spirit downward in the path of despair..' William James
'A belief is not a belief until you can visualize it, unless you can create a picture of it in your
minds eye, especially if you have no doubts that reality can be - or is - possible.' Hedley Beare
Aust Educationalist
'Something magical happens when you bring together a group of people from different disciplines
with a common purpose.' Mark Stefik Palo Alto Research Centre Fellow
'If we believe something does not exist unless we measure it, then we put aside: love, feeling,
intuition, art and philosophy.' Peter Block The Answer to How is Yes.'
Every person in the organization must change inside their hearts and minds, so that they
themselves become principle centred.' Stephen Covey Business Philosopher
'We may never fully appreciate the role that not pursuing a dream plays in limiting people to
disappointing careers and regret filled lives... 'I used to be so gutsy'... 'What happened?.'' Anon
page 10 of 32
'I think I don't regret a single excess of my responsive youth, I only regret, in my chilled age,
certain occasions and possibilities I didn't embrace.' Henry James
Top of Page
The Change Process
In reality 'learning' and 'change' are synonymous. Change is not an issue if it makes sense to and
is 'owned' by those involved, rather than being arbitrarily imposed. An appreciation that change is
a continual process, involving confusion and difficulty, is vital for future learners. 'It is not
change that kills it is the transitions'.
'Some people think you are strong when you hold on. Others think it is when you let go'. Sylvia
Robinson
'Too many decisions about changes are made by people untouched by the change process.' Peter
Block, Business philosopher.
'How many times have we brought in an outsider to tell us what we already knew .' Peter Block
'Why follow the steps of another to find out where our dreams will lead us.' Peter Block
'To see the future you have to travel on the rough edge of experience.' Harriet Rubin Fast
Company writer
'Things do not change; we change.' Thoreau
'Most people (by the time they have become adults ) can't change their minds because their
neural pathways have become set... the longer neural pathways have been running one way the
harder it is to rewire them.' Howard Gardner
'To the blind all things are sudden.' Old saying.
'Coming, ready or not!' Childhood game
'What worked yesterday is the gilded cage of tomorrow.' Peter Block Business, Philosopher
Author of 'The Answer to No is Yes'
'You can plan events, but if they go according to plan they are not events.' John Berger Art Critic
'You can't jump a chasm in two bounds.' Chinese saying
'As the prostitute said, 'It's not the job it's the stairs.'' Anon
'To travel hopefully is better than to arrive.' R L Stevenson
'In a world of infinite choice people are struggling to figure out what to do.' Ralph Waldo
Emerson
'Nothing was ever achieved without enthusiasm.' Ralph Waldo Emerson
'Innovation never happens as planned.' Gifford Pinchot Environmentalist
'Form follows function' Louis Henry Sullivan Architect
'Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds.' Einstein
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'If a torrent sweeps a man against a boulder, you must expect him to scream, and you need not be
surprised if the scream is sometimes a new theory.' R L Stevenson
'The price of change is measured by our will and courage, our persistence, in the face of
difficulty.' Peter Block Business Philosopher
'If you believe that saying no will get you shot, well, what a fine way to go.' Peter Block
'You must be the change you want to see in the world. If blood is to be spilled to do it. Let it be
our own.'. Mahatma Gandhi
'It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.' W Edward Deming
'If life is like a stage I want better lighting.' Anon
'It is our belief that schools in the main are entering the twenty-first century with structures
and more importantly, underlying assumptions which are nineteenth century in origins, or relating
to the world of the 1950 or 1960s.' Bowring -Carr and Burnham West UK Educators
'To cope with a challenging world, any entity must develop the capacity of shifting and changing of developing new skills and attitudes; in short the capacity of learning.' A De Guess: 'The Living
Company'.
'You cannot carry out fundamental changes without a certain amount of madness. In any case it
comes from non - conformity, the courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to
invent the future. It took madmen of yesterday for us to be able to act with extreme clarity
today. I want to be one of those madmen.' Thomas Sankarra African Congress.
In schools the main problem is not the absence of innovations but the presence of too many
disconnected... piecemeal, superficially adorned projects... We are over our heads'. Fullan 2001
'Every change you see hides something else we want to do.' Rene Magritte ( Artist)
'Familiarity reduces the greatness of things.' Seneca 4BC-65BC
'Nothing evades our attention as persistently as that which we take for granted... the decades
roll on without even a suggestion that perhaps the whole matter must be rethought' Marion Brady
US Educator
'You can't force commitment, what you can do... You nudge a little here, inspire a little there, and
provide a role model. Your primary influence is the environment you create.' Peter Senge
'It doesn't happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time'. Margery Williams
'Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes along.' Samuel Butler
'Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get.' Forest Gump's
Mother
'We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary egg. We
must hatch or go bad.' C S Lewis
'Passion mutates into procedures, into rules and roles. Instead of purpose, we focus on policies.
Instead of being free to create, we impose constraints that squeeze the life out of us.' Margaret
Wheatley and Kellner Rogers
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'The future cannot be determined. It can only be experienced as it occurring. Life doesn't know
what it will be until it notices what it has become.' Margaret Wheatley and Kellner - Rogers
'Age is a high price to pay for maturity.' Anon
'In order to transform schools successfully, educators need to navigate the difficult space
between letting go of old patterns and grabbing on to new ones.' Deal 1990
'There is no risk less way to the future, we must choose which set of risks we wish to run.' Jay
Ogilvy
'I have a feeling we are not in Kansas anymore.' Dorothy/ Wizard of Oz
'Men are asleep, they must die before they awake.' The Koran
'Custom lies on us heavy as frost'. William Wordsworth
'It takes less energy to be free and flowing than locked up in stress ... we learn by releasing and
letting go, not by adding on.' William Bates Editor
'The road is better than the inn.' Cervantes
'The goal of strategic planning is to produce a stream of wise decisions... it also accepts the
possibility that the final product may not resemble what was initially intended'. Patterson, Purkey
and Parker
'I may have not got where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.'
Douglas Adams
'Evolution is the most popular way we have for dealing with change.' Seth Godin Business
Philosopher
'Evolution favors the survival of the wisest.' Jonas Salk
'Life is what happens when you are making other plans' John Lennon
'People don't want to feel stuck, they want to be able to change.' M C Richards Poet
'It is necessary; therefore it is possible.' C A Borghese
'Plan to be better tomorrow than today, but don't plan to be finished'. Carol Ann Tomlinson US
Educator
'Crossing this river is difficult: it means leaving behind some of your own ideas' Dick Raymond
'When you start to abandoning your old beliefs or values... you may be stuck at the threshold for
two or three years. Before moving on, you have to clear away your cherished beliefs.' Dick
Raymond
'Start with the spirit of the rule- bending it to shape best practice. If the system tightens up,
go to the letter of the rule and efficiently do what is necessary with as little energy as possible
in a way that minimizes impact.' Keith Goldhammer Author. 'Characteristics of successful
Principals.
'If a things not worth doing do it badly and get on with the important things.' Bruce Hammonds (
adapted from G K Chesterton)
page 13 of 32
'If a thing is worth doing it is worth doing it badly.' G K Chesterton.
'Sometimes a thing worth doing is worth overdoing'. David Letterman TV Host
Top of Page
Leadership and Teamwork
The imposed bureaucratic 'top down' changes have resulted in school being 'over managed and
under led.' Now is the time for courageous leaders, at all level, to emerge and add their 'voices'
to the debate. There are no experts with 'the answer' - we will have to invent the future
ourselves together as we go along.
Shared leadership... is less like a an orchestra, where the conductor is always in charge, and more
like a jazz band, where leadership is passed around ... depending on what the music demands at
the moment and who feels most moved by the spirit to express the music.' Schlechy 2001
'Leaders... will be explorers, adventurers, trailblazers... leaders of leaders... They will gather
around them people who have the future in their bones.' Rowan Gibson 'Re Thinking the Future.'
'The key to leadership is having people willing to follow you if only out curiosity to see what's
going to happen.' Marc Anderson Founder of Netscape
'Systems of schooling are over managed and under led'. Thomas Sergiovanni
'We need to decide whether to give full service or lip service.' Peter Block
'My friends, you never need to bow to no one' Gandalf to the Hobbits
(In schools) 'There is an emphasis on doing things right rather on doing the right things.' Thomas
Sergiovanni
'It is hard to remember that you came to drain the swamp when you are up to your backside in
crocodiles.' Saying
'The more faithfully you listen to the voice within you, the better you hear what is sounding
outside. And only he who listens can speak..' Dag Hammarskjold UN
'Comparison, a great teacher told me, is the cardinal sin of modern life. It traps us in a game we
can't win. Once we define ourselves in terms of others we lose the freedom to shape our own
lives.' Jim Collins, Author 'Built to Last'
'Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it
agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.' Buddha 53 BC -483 BC
'Self doubt combined with dignity is central to competent leadership... ( a leader)is able to
recognize when he... is on the wrong track and perhaps identify the error by giving in to the need
for complete reevaluation.' John Ralston Saul 'Voltaire's Bastards.
'The essence of good strategy is what has always been - insecurity and uncertainty.' John Ralston
Saul 'Voltaire's Bastards
'There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth - not going all the way, and not
starting.' Buddna
page 14 of 32
' the challenge ( for leadership) is to initiate a conversation about what's purpose and what's just
practice. Preserve the best, reinvent the rest'... Hold your company hostage, declare your vision
in a public way... Make decisions right or wrong .There is nothing worse than waffling'. Keith
Yamashira US Business Consultant
'Education can change culture but only in so far as educators are transformed.' Parent School
Board USA
'My job is creating an environment where teachers continually learn'. US Innovative Principal
'The question of 'How?' - more than any other question - looks for answers outside of us. It is an
individual expression of our doubt.' Peter Block Business Philosopher
'Choosing to act on what matters is the choice to live a passionate existence, which is anything
but controlled and predictable.' Peter Block Author 'Stewardship.'
'Leadership is a personal quest you undertake, based on mission that troubles your heart.'
Harriet Rubin. 'Fast Company' Writer
'We have all worked with people who are entirely lacking in energy or are the walking black holes
of human existence; they suck energy out of whoever they walk into. So the litmus test for all of
is, 'Do I generate more energy when I walk into a room or when I walk out of it?'' Steve Farber,
President of Extreme Leadership
'I think it is important for leaders to answer the question 'What's exciting about the work I /we
really do here?' ..to expand it out to the higher meaning and purpose... To really articulate what
we really do here, and why this place is cool.'' Steve Farber , President 'Extreme Leadership'.
'Leadership is a scary thing. That's why few people want to stand up to the plate.'... 'There are
many people who want to be matadors, only to find themselves in the ring with 2,000 pounds of
bull bearing down on them, and then discover that what they really wanted was to wear tight
pants and hear the crowd roar' Steve Farber.
'Good directors, playwrights and leaders are enablers who make it possible for others to succeed
by providing the means and opportunities for actions.' Anon
'Faced with the choice of buckling under by complying or 'doing a bit of rule bending' successful
leaders get on with the latter.' Thomas Sergiovanni
'To be a leader is to be awake and alert, to be dissatisfied at all times.' Peter Koestenbaum
Philosopher
'Remember a dead fish can float downstream but it takes a live one to swim upstream'. W C
Fields
'It is easier to follow the leader than to lead the follower.' Anon
'All bottlenecks occur at the top.' Anon
'Be who you are
and say what you feel
because those who mind don't matter
and those who matter don't mind.' Dr Suess
page 15 of 32
'Leaders are 'canny outlaws', system benders, creative and responsible rule benders. They have
to succeed because... the deck is stacked against creative, imaginative and entrepreneurial
teachers.' Thomas Sergiovanni
'Most of what institutional leadership does today comes from what they thought we wanted and
needed yesterday.' Peter Block, Author 'The Answer to How is Yes'.
'Win small, win early, win often.' Gary Hamel Leadership 'guru'.
'Life shrinks or expands in proportion to ones courage.' Anais Nin
'In fact, leaders... that go from good to great start not with 'where' but with 'who'. They start
by getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the
right seats... first the people, then the direction'. Jim Collins
'We need to make hope practical and despair less convincing as a central contribution from adults
to young people.' Jaon Kenwg
'The human being is a walking paradox. We want to be free, completely individual on one hand, and
we want to belong on the other hand. We want to be part of a flock but at the same time, you
want to be you,' Kjell and Jonas
'Leaders... appeal to the heart... with people's deepest, heartfelt hopes. What are these hopes?
Humans have a fundamental longing to believe we are successful in what we do - our need to
achieve. Educators are typically denied this sense of success. Bombarded with too many state,
national, and district standards for students to master... teachers are often unclear as to what
they are supposed to accomplish'. Rick Dufor 2004
'This is a dreary era. Those who know about education have no power; those who have the power
know little or nothing about education' Marion Brady US Educator
'The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all, it is simply to reduce as many
individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizen, to put down dissent.' H
L Menken
'It is one of life's great ironies: schools are in the business of teaching and learning, yet they are
terrible at learning from one another. If they ever discover how to do this, their future is
assured.' Fullan 2001
'I will release you to be creatively crazy and wonderful for these students... We will do whatever
it takes.' Lorraine Monro Author 'Nothings Impossible'
'Hire Rembrandt to do the painting and don't tell him how to paint.' Anon
'The leader lays down the melody line and encourages individual band members to improvise
around them.' Bradley Porten US Educationalist
'If you are going to skate on thin ice, tap dance, and go down in style.' Bryce Courtenay
'Leaders need to have clear answer to the question 'What do we believe in? and be equally clear
about... 'How do you translate your beliefs into actions?' Bowring Carr and Burnham West
'Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.' Anon
page 16 of 32
'Alice came to a fork in the road. 'Which one will I take?' she asked. 'Where do you want to go?'
responded the Cheshire Cat. 'I don't know Alice answered. 'Then', said the cat, 'It doesn't
matter.'' Alice in Wonderland
'Power can be taken, but not given. The process of taking is empowerment itself.' Gloria Steinem
US Feminist
( We need) 'leadership that is tough enough to demand a great deal from everyone, and
leadership that is tender enough to encourage the heart.' Thomas Sergiovanni Leadership for the
Schoolhouse
'It is an injustice, a grave evil and disturbance of the right order for a large and higher
organization to abrogate to itself functions which can be performed more efficiently by smaller
and lower bodies.' Papal Encyclical
'make no little plans. They have no magic to stir man's blood... make big plans. Aim high in hope
and work.' Daniel H Burnham
'It is time for us to release ourselves from simplistic and ineffective prescriptions; the time to
dream is upon us.' Carl Glickman
There comes a time in the affairs of man when he must take the bull by the tail and face the
situation.' W C Fields
'The true leader senses and transforms the needs of followers.' James McGregor Burns
If we want to help people change, I s important that we don't push or pull them - just walk
together.' 'Aquarian Conspiracy.'
'A team is a mosaic' Charles Williams
'Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex and more violent. It takes a geniusand a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction,' E E Schumacher
'The best leaders are like outstanding samurai warriors in the sense that they engage themselves
fully in the tasks at hand without being distracted by what might go wrong. Warren Bennis called
this 'The Wallenda Factor' - putting ones energy into walking life's various wires without concern
for the outcome'. Farson and Keyes.
'Decisions of the head rather than the heart are then ones we come to regret.' Patricia
Weenolsen Psychologist
'When we are doing something we're passionate about, failure becomes a non-issue... Pursuit of a
dream rarely leads to regrets... Too many of those with unrealized aspirations have set them
aside due to fear of failure' Farson and Keyes.
'Nothing happens until someone does something.' Steve Farke Leadership Guru
No more prizes for building the ark .Prizes only for predicting rain.' Anon
Leadership is needed to assemble a team of renegades- people with the right mix of passion and
courage to be willing to do things that haven't been done before.' Scott Lutz, CEO
page 17 of 32
'Never look down to test the ground before taking the next step; only he who keeps his eye on
the far horizon will find the right road.' Dag Hammarskjold UN
Top of Page
Teaching and Learning
For too long schools have had to comply with endless bureaucratic top down edicts, confusing
curriculums and associated accountability demands which have taken the focus away from learning
and teaching. As these imposed technocratic systems falter it is now time for creative teachers
to also add their voices to the debate.
'It's about teaching and it's about time.' Book Title
'we know at lot more now than the 'last time around'- the 1960s and 1970s - about how to work
for smart schools... ' 'The smart school finds it's foundation in a rich and evolving set of
principles about human thinking and learning.' David Perkins, 'Smart Schools.'.
'education ultimately depends on what happens in classrooms... between teachers and learners.
That is fundamental.'... 'I hope that teachers will discover the optimism and direction to combat
the energy - draining pressures and frustrations of most educational settings.' David Perkins,
'Smart Schools.'
'Do not confine your children to your own learning for they were born in another time.' Hebrew
Proverb
'Every parent's deepest wish is that their children are self sufficient, happy, and able to live a
full life.' Peter Block
'To be a teacher you must be a prophet - because you are trying to prepare people for a world
thirty to fifty years into the future.' Gordon Brown MIT
'Smart people don't learn... because they have too much invested in proving what they know and
avoiding being seen as not knowing.' Chris Agyris
'The excitement of learning separates youth from old age. As long as you are learning you're not
old.' Rosalyn Sussman Yalow US Medical Physicist
'The world cannot afford to lose the talents of half it's people if we are to solve the many
problems that beset us.' Rosalyn Sussman Yalow US Medical Physicist
'Old age is compulsory, wisdom is optional.' Anon
'You must learn day by day, year by year, to broaden your horizons. The more things you love, the
more things you are interested in, the more you enjoy, the more you are indignant about.' Ethyl
Barrymore Actress
'Teachers must be encouraged - I almost said 'freed', to pursue an education that strives for
depth of understanding.' Howard Gardner
'teachers and administrators sleepwalk through their responsibilities, dulled and discouraged by
the endless pressures and problems.' David Perkins 'Smart Schools.'
page 18 of 32
'Until recently, education has had it backwards, caring little for the teacher... and enormously
about the content. Yet it is a gifted teacher who can infect a generation with the excitement of
learning.' Aquarian Conspiracy
'Education must develop in youth the capabilities for engaging in intense concentrated
involvement in an activity.' James Coleman 1977
'My education was a prolonged and concerted attack on my individuality' Neil Crofts Author
Authenticity
'I was born exited' Mark Twain
'Learning is a matter of intensity not elapsed time.' Tom Peters , 'Re - Imagine'
'There is a road from the eye to the head that does not go through the intellect.' G K Chesterton
'We must give more attention to the interplay between the science of teaching - pedagogy - and
the art of teaching... A teacher must be anchored in pedagogy and blend imagination, creativity
and inspiration into the teaching learning process to ignite a passion for learning in student.'
Peyton Williams, President ASCD 2003
'We can whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all children... we already know
more than we need to know in order to do that.' Ron Edmonds Educator
'Having no alternative we were born creative.' Aquarian Conspiracy
'Human beings start out as butterflies and end up in cocoons.' Anon
'Unfortunately schools are no help because they teach us not to make connections... There should
be a few people at least... pulling things together.' Edward Hall Anthropologist
'When Abraham Maslow asked a college class whether anyone had expectations of greatness, no
one responded. 'Who else then', he replied dryly.' In 'Aquarian Conspiracy'.
'How can you do new math with an old math mind.' Charlie Brown /Peanuts
'The first problem for all of us, men and woman, is not to learn, but to unlearn.' Gloria Steinem
US Feminist
'Teachers who do a bad job with old tools are likely to do a worse job with strange new tools.'
Anon Educator
'The young child approaching a new subject or anew problem is like the scientist operating at the
edge of his chosen field.' Jerome Bruner
'Good teaching is forever being on the cutting edge of a child's competence'. Jerome Bruner 86
'The teacher's role in discussion is to keep it going along fruitful lines - be moderating, guiding,
correcting and arguing like one more students.' Mortimer Adler, The Paideia Proposal
'what a child can do today with assistance, she will be able to do by herself tomorrow'. Lev
Vygotsky.
'The metaphor ( coaching) with sports is meant quite seriously... the coach stands back , observes
the performance, and provides guidance. The coach applauds strengths, identifies weaknesses,
page 19 of 32
points up principles, offers guiding and often inspiring imagery, and decides what kind of practice
to emphasize.' David Perkins 'Smart Schools.'
'Expert tutors often do not help very much. They hang back letting the student manage as much
as possible. And when things go awry, rather than help directly they raise questions: 'Could you
explain this step again? How did you... ?' Mark Lepper Stanford Psychologist
'The difference between reform and transformation is as if we have been trying to attach wings
to a caterpillar... it is high time we freed ourselves of attachment to old forms and eased the
flight of the unfettered human mind.' 'Aquarian Conspiracy'
'No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible until a great change takes place in
their mode of thought.' John Stuart Mills.
'Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others,
are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.' Douglas Adams, Author
'Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy'
'To change your reality you have to change your inner thoughts.' David Bohm Physicist
'One of the saddest things about US education is that the wisdom of our most successful
teachers is lost to the profession when they retire.' John Dewey
I discovered the brutally simple motivation behind the development of impositions of all
systematic instructional programmes and tests - lack of trust that teachers can teach and
students can learn.' Frank Smith 'Insult to Intelligence'
'The too soft teacher reinforces the learner's natural wish to retreat and stay safe... the
teacher must know when to let the learner struggle... we must not be spared our learning. Risk
brings its own rewards.' Aquarian Conspiracy
'In every story I have heard, good teachers share one trait: a strong sense of personal identity
infuses their work'. Parker Palmer 'Courage to Teach'.
'All true thoughts have been thought through already a thousand times; but to make them truly
yours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.'
Goethe
'Time given to thought is the greatest timesaver of all'. Norman Cousins
'The trouble is that thinking looks like loafing. Who wants to pay people for daydreaming?
Somerset Maughan
'Don't just do something, stand there.' Zen saying
'Some people are making such thorough plans for rainy days that they aren't enjoying today's
sunshine.' William Feather US Author
'Only the mediocre are always at their best.' Somerset Maughan
'Through learning we re-create ourselves. Through learning we become able to do something we
were never able to do.' Peter Senge
' The biggest thing about being someone is imajunation. Before you can be something, you must
imajun it.' Fifth Grader quoted by S Papert
page 20 of 32
'each individual brain is more like a unique and unimaginably dense rain forest, teeming with
growth and decay. It is less like a programmed machine than an ecological habitat that mimics the
evolution of life itself.' Prof Edleman Nobel Prize winner
'Learning is spontaneous, unpredictable, fun, passionate, dangerous.' Bowring - Carr and Burnham
West UK Educators
'A child's attitude towards everything is an artist's attitude.' Willa Cather US Novelist
'Art should simplify.' Willa Cather US Novelist
'We don't have to make human beings smart. They are born smart. All we have to do is stop doing
things that make them stupid.' John Holt
'Children have real understanding only of that which they invent themselves, and each time that
we try to teach them too quickly, we keep them from reinventing it themselves'. Piaget
'Morpheus: 'I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one
who must walk through it' The Matrix (Film)
'School improvement is most surely and thoroughly achieved when teachers engage in frequent,
continuous and increasingly concrete talk about teaching practices... capable of distinguishing one
practice and it's virtue from another.' Judith Warren Little Education Researcher
Of a gifted teacher (she) 'has an unfailing heart and eye for magical classrooms and who loses
sleep over any sliver of work at less than the highest quality'. Carol Ann Tomlinson 'The
Differentiated Classroom
' The key is to replace a belief in 'experts' who 'deliver' knowledge of what good teaching is to
workshops with communities of teachers who learn through ongoing collaboration and practice.'
Dennis Sparks Nat Staff Dev Centre (US)
'The drive to learn is as strong as the sexual drive. It begins earlier and lasts longer' Edward T
Hall ( Anthropologist)
'Out of the questions of students come most of the creative ideas and discoveries'. Ellen Langer
'To be a teacher you must be a prophet - because you are trying to prepare people for a world
thirty to fifty years into the future.' Gordon Brown former Dean MIT
'Many children struggle in schools... because the way they are being taught is the way is
incompatible with the way they learn.' Peter Senge
'If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it.' Mao Zedong
'A teacher's failure to create an intellectually reflective, engagement for learning is not simply
malpractice but it is immoral particularly for students who cannot withdraw.' John Goodland
Educator
'Most learning disabilities are actually teaching disabilities on the part of the school.' Retired
Teacher
I believe babies are born as innovative personalities... But our social processes work to stamp out
exploration and questioning.' Jay Forrestor Prof MIT
page 21 of 32
'All human beings are born with unique gifts. The healthy functioning community depends on
realizing the capacity to develop each gift'. Peter Senge
'Learning to use your intuition is learning to be your own teacher. Vaughan
'Being 'educated' means knowing how little I really know.' Carol T Lloyd
'As your island of knowledge grows, so does your shoreline of wonder.' Anon
'Good teaching is forever being on the cutting edge of a child competence'. Jerome Bruner
'Let the main object... to seek and to find a method of instruction, by which teachers may teach
less, but learners learn more.' John Amos Comenius
'I cured the patient but he died' is as logical as saying 'I taught the pupil, but she did not learn.'
Bowring -Carr and John Burnham West UK Educators
'The open teacher ... establishes rapport and resonance, sensing unspoken needs, conflicts, hopes
and fears. Respecting the learners autonomy, the teacher spends more time helping to articulate
the urgent questions than demanding the right answers.' Aquarian Conspiracy
'Progressive white teaches seem to say to their black students 'Let me help you find your voice. I
promise not to criticize one note as you search for your song'. But the black teachers say 'I've
heard your song loud and clear. Now I want to teach you to harmonize with the rest of the
world.'' Delpit 'The Silenced Dialogue'
'teachers who respond to their children's message, and not to their mistakes, appeared to help
their children more.' John Smith Warwick Elley NZ Educators
'The open teacher helps the learner discover patterns and connections, fosters strange new
possibilities, and is a midwife to ideas.' Aquarian Conspiracy
'We trust the teacher who gives us stress, pain or drudgery when we need it. And we resent the
teacher who... takes us into deep water when we are frightened of the shallow'. Aquarian
Conspiracy
'Come to the edge', he said.
They said, 'We are afraid'
'Come to the edge', he said
They came
He pushed them... and they flew. Guillaume Apollinaire Poet
Before we choose our tools and techniques we must choose our dreams and values.' Anon
'If you want to make a mark you have to take a risk.' Terrance E Deal
'After the final no there comes a yes and on that yes the future of the world depends' Wallace
Stevens
'Studies of high school gradates rarely find any correlation between recognition in high school
and recognition thereafter... The term s are too different. What worked in high school seldom
works later... Those not tested by setbacks when young may never learn how to rebound from
defeat.' Farson and Keyes 'Whoever makes the Most Mistakes Wins.'
page 22 of 32
'Most schools do a remarkably poor job of recognizing and rewarding future achievers... The
standards of success in school have very little to do with standards thereafter' Farson and Keyes
'Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins.'
What did predict economic success was a willingness to take chances, most educational systems
honor those who play it safe... The ones who do take chances have a hard time in school and are
often penalized for their independent ways'. Farson and Keyes.
'We are creating a one size fits all system that needlessly brands many young people as failures,
when they might thrive if offered a different education whose progress was measured
differently. Paradoxically we're embracing standardized tests just when the economy is
eliminating standardized jobs.' Robert Reich Former US Labor Secretary.
'There are two reasons why people learn one because someone said you can't and the other
because someone said you can.' Howard Wilson Retired NZ Principal
'The learner's attitude is thus an essential factor to determine the direction of his learning,
whether he shall learn to do or not learn to do.' William Kilpatrick, Prof of Education 1917
Top of Page
Curriculum
Schools have been trying to implement impossible curriculums based on a technocratic
accountability model. The future demands students who retain a love of learning - students with
their talents, dreams and passions developed. To achieve these demands a new appreciation of
what a curriculum for the future should be.
'If we don't encourage others to find their own meaning, their own voice, we will never be able to
sustain our own. Freedom comes from following you own voice not following another's' Peter Block
'There is, it seems, more concern about whether children learn the mechanics of reading and
writing than grow to love reading and writing; learn about democracy than have practice in
democracy; hear about knowledge... rather than gain experience in personally constructing
knowledge... see the world narrowly, simple and ordered, rather than broad complex and
uncertain'. Vitto Perrone, 'Letter to Teachers'
'There is something about the Procrustean bed about schools; some children are left disabled by
being hacked about to fit the curriculum; some are stretched to take up the available space,
others less malleable are labeled as having special educational needs.' Chris Bowring-Carr and
John Burnham West
'The constant need to move on, and to document progress, in normal schools means that education
tends to be cut up into bite sized task..' Guy Claxton in 'Wise -Up'
'Teaching is impossible. If we simply add together all that is expected of a typical teacher... the
sum makes greater demands than any individual can possibly fulfill'. Lee Shulman Stanford Univ
'If the shoe doesn't fit, must we change the foot?' Gloria Steinem US Feminist
'Could it be that the current education reforms have not yet fully dealt with what teaching and
learning are all about? In a word, yes.' Peyton Williams ASCD President 2003
page 23 of 32
'We must beware of needless innovation, especially when guided by logic.' Winston Churchill
'How many students ... were rendered callous to ideas, and how many lost the impetus to learn
because of the way in which learning was experienced by them?' John Dewey
Many school focus too much on achievement... (they need) to create opportunities for young
people develop their learning muscles and their learning stamina through working on real
problems... to reflect on and manage their own learning.' Guy Claxton
'Do not teach too many subjects and what you teach, teach thoroughly.' Alfred North Whitehead
'You have to take enough time to get kids deeply involved in something they can think about in
lots of different ways,' Howard Gardner
'The real process of education should be the process of learning to think through the application
of real problems.' John Dewey
'All the arts are brothers, each one throwing a light unto the others.' Voltaire
'Knowledge is a polite word for dead but not buried imagination.' e e cummings us poet
'Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that does not mean we deserve
to conquer the universe.' Kurt Vonnegut Jnr Author
'What we want to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the
child.' G B Shaw
'The first people had questions, and they were free. The second people had answers, and they
became enslaved.' Wind Eagle American Indian Chief
'Standardization, the great ally of mediocrity,y wins out over imagination.' Sergiovanni
'The problem is fundamental... It is as if a secret committee, now lost to history, has made a
study of children and, having figured out what the greatest number were least disposed to
declared that all of them should do it.' Tracey Kidder
'Everything depends on the quality of the experience which is had.' John Dewey
'The central problem of an education based on experience is to select the kind of present
experiences that live fruitfully and creatively in subsequent experience.' John Dewey
'Of course schools should be accountable- but accountable for what?... I would like to see schools
accountable for developing students who have a love of learning - who are continually growing in
wisdom and in their ability to function effectively( and happily) in the world.' Judy Yero
www.teachersmind.com
'We must not entrust the future of our children to habit.' Judy Yero
.Be careful what you give children, for sooner or later you are sure to get it back.' Barbara
Kingsolver
'A teacher cannot build a community of learners unless the voices and lives of the students are an
integral part of the curriculum.' Peterson 94
'The curriculum is to be thought of in terms activity and experience rather than knowledge to be
acquired and facts to be stored.' Haddow Report UK 1931
page 24 of 32
'The main function of the school... lies in offering opportunities and an environment in which a
child can explore freely, along many lines, and create in many media. In doing he will utilize his
natural instinctive energies in the acquiring of skills and the building of interests.' Froebel
Publication 1949
'Much of the material presented in schools strikes students as alien, if not pointless.' Howard
Gardner
'the intuitive, the expressive, the un-measurable, the intensely personal have never found a
satisfactory place in the curriculum, in assessment, in the publics esteem.' Hedley Beare Prof of
Educ Melbourne
( Because) it is the intellect which dominates schooling ... the specifically soul making subjectsliterature, drama, music, the visual arts- are progressively 'de-souled' as the child progresses
through school' Dr Bernie Neville Aust Educator
'how we picture ourselves, the language we use about ourselves and our family, the stories we tell
about ourselves or which we allow others to tell, whom we compare ourselves with, what we think
we will become, how we define our own universe, these are the raw material from which we spin
our web of personal mythology'. Hedley Beare Aust Educator
'Teaching which ignores the realities of children will be rejected as surely as any graft which
attempts to ignore the body's immune system.' Howard Gardner
'Treat people as if they were what they might be, and you will help them become capable of
being.' Goethe
'We should train ourselves not to ask 'How intelligent he/she is?' but 'Which intelligence doe
he/she have most of?.' Charles Handy
'Thinking precedes literacy and numeracy but nowhere in the curriculum is that recognized.' Mc
Gavin, Glasgow University
'We have to... immerse ourselves in interactive, real life, complex experiences out of which we can
process new lives' Caine and Caine 97
'We should see schools as safe arenas for experimenting with life, for discovering our talents...
for taking responsibity for tasks and others people, for learning how to learn... and for exploring
our beliefs about life and society.' Charles Handy
'If we wish to present ourselves to the wider world as New Zealanders then we must be able to
listen to our own voices, and trace our own footsteps; we must have our own heroes and heroines
inspire us; we must persist with building our won culture with the ingredients close to hand and
not import theses ingredients ready made from abroad'. The late Michael King NZ Historian.
'Nature is one. It is not divided into physics, chemistry, quantum mechanics.' Albert Szent-Gyorgi
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Creativity
We are leaving the Industrial Age and entering an Age of Ideas and Creativity , an age where
individual and shared talent will be the most important assets. Schools as Tom Peter says in his
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wonderful book 'Re-Imagine': 'Are a thinly disguised conspiracy to quash creativity'. 'Talent', he
says, 'is everything. And the production of talent is significantly dependent on schools'. Or it
ought to be.
'Creators love creations before they exist'. Robert Fritz
'I believe I experience creativity at every moment of my life.' Henri Bergson
'Some people see things as they are and ask 'why'? I see things as they have never been and ask
'why not'?' George Bernard Shaw
'Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious.' Anon
'Life is creative. It makes it up as it goes along.' Margaret Wheatley and Kellner-Rogers Authors
'A Simpler Way'
'Creativity may have killed a few cats, but evolution certainly eliminated many more incurious
ones.' Guy Claxton in 'Wise Up'
'Life is to be lived. If you have to support yourself you bloody well better find a way that is going
to be interesting.' Katherine Hepburn
'To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist today.' Samuel
Beckett
'When error holds so much power, play disappears. Creativity ceases. Margaret Wheatley and
Kellner Rogers
'Be a judge of children's creativity - but not too good a judge!' Elwyn S Richardson NZ Pioneer
Educator Author 'In the Early World'
Life is not neat, parsimonious, nor elegant. Life seeks order in a disorderly way.' Margaret
Wheatley and Kellner Rogers
'To live a creative life we must lose our fear of being wrong.' Joseph Chillons Pearce
'Orville Wright did not have a pilots license: don't be afraid to bend, or break the rules'. Richard
Tait Grand Pooh Bah , Cranium.
'Professionals built the Titanic - an amateur built the Ark.' Anon
'Although prepared for martyrdom, I prefer it to be postponed.' Winston Churchill
'When Michelangelo looked at the block of marble he was to carve he looked beyond the outside
and saw the shape of the statue he was about to create. He could see the real beauty hidden
within... ' Valerie Stewart, 'The David Factor'.
'The human imagination... has great difficulty in living within the confines of a materialist
practice or philosophy. It dreams like a dog in it's basket, of hares in the open.' John Berger Art
Critic
'To invent something you have to be removed from the world. In order to have liberty to imagine
something better, you need to step outside for a while.' Bruce Mau Designer
'There is no hope for any speculation that does not look absurd at first glance.' Niels Bohr
Physicist.
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'Every important idea in science sounds strange at first.' Thomas Kuhn Scientist
'Most of the rules in society tend to restrict creativity to a safe level.' Sting (Musician)
'Great thought reduced to practice become great art.' William Hazlett
'...the artist treats intuition and nuance with respect and reminds us that a little madness resides
in all of us. Artists give voice to feelings, to conflict, to the prism of human experience,' Peter
Block, Business Philosopher.
'Creativity is born of chaos, even if it is somewhat difficult to glimpse the possibilities in the
midst of the confusion' Charles Handy
'You have to stand outside the box to see how the box can be re-designed.' Charles Handy
'Passion is born of vague hopes.' Charles Handy
'All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Second it is opposed. Third it is
accepted as being self evident.' Arthur Schopenhauer
'If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different
drummer.' Thoreau
'Don't worry about people stealing your ideas/If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them
down people's throats.' Howard Aitken
I don't give a damn for any man who can spell a word only one way..' Mark Twain
'Marge, I can't wear a pink shirt to work. Everybody wears a white shirt. I'm not popular enough
to wear white shirt.' Homer Simpson
'A hunch is creativity trying to tell you some thing' Frank Capra
'..centres of creativity tend to at the intersections of different cultures, where beliefs,
lifestyles and knowledge mingle and allow individuals to see new combinations of ideas with
greater ease.' Mihaly Czikszentmihaly
'The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a creative mind to spot a wrong
question.' Anthony Jay
'Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is?' Frank Scully
'Creative minds are rarely tidy.' Abbey Plaque
'innovators are seldom easy to be around. The most creative members of an organization can be
irascible, annoying, touchy, intolerant, prickly, self aggrandizing. Their lack of tact offends
coworkers. It also makes them willing to speak up when other hold their tongues. What comes out
of their mouths is often quite valuable, if not always easy to hear.' Farson and Keyes, 'Whoever
Makes the most Mistakes Wins.'
'If we learn to domesticate creativity- that is enhance it rather than deny it in our culture- we
can increases the number of creative persons... as it was in the Renaissance, Elizabethan England,
when civilization made great leaps forward.' John Gowan Educator.
'The creative person is overpowered, captive of and driven by a demon... They become our
legendary heroes.' Carl Jung
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'One of the marks of having a gift is to have the courage to use it.' Katherine Anne Porter US
Novelist
'Human life itself may almost be pure chaos, but the work of the artist is to take these handfuls
of confusion and disparate things that seem to be irreconcilable and put them together in a form
to give them some kind of shape and meaning.' Katherine Anne Porter US Novelist
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Powerful Learners
Students are born with a powerful desire to learn. Everything we do as parents and teachers must
ensure that this powerful desire is kept alive. If there were to be one thing to be continually
assessed it would be this desire... too many students leave with little to show for their time at
school. Too many leave alienated and powerless.
'We are born trying to gain power over our environment. We live and die trying to figure out who
we are; what life means; how to understand joy, pain, victory, and death; how we relate to each
other; and why we are here. The disciplines we study- art music, literature, mathematics, science
or philosophy- give us lenses... the skills... the power to use the understandings in meaningful
ways.' Phenix 1986
'We should turn out people who love learning so much and learn so well that they will be able to
learn whatever needs to be learned.' John Holt
'In order for the brain to comprehend the heart must first listen.' David Perkins, 'Smart
Schools.'
'To live our lives fully, to work whole heartedly, to refuse directly what we can't swallow, to
accepts the mystery in all matters of meaning- this is the ultimate adventure.' Peter Block,
Philosopher
'People see their own lives as stories; a lifelong story with a single hero or heroine... much
contemporary unhappiness is due to the fact that people in high tech societies receive neither
strong myths and stories from their culture nor the ability to construct their own... they lose the
plot.' Guy Claxton in 'Wise -Up'
'Learning power comprises both literacy and numeracy, and is ultimately more fundamental than
either of them.' Guy Claxton in 'Wise -Up'
Underneath the visible problems with reading and writing lies the deeper problem of 'illearnacy':
an acquired disabling of learning courage and learning initiative.' Guy Claxton in 'Wise-Up'
'One barrier... is the impoverishment of classroom language, the failure to cultivate a common
vocabulary about inquiry, explanation, argument and problem solving. David Perkins 'Smart
Schools.'
'Good questions work on us, we don't work on them. They are not a project to be completed but a
doorway opening onto greater depth of understanding, actions that will take us into being more
fully alive. Peter Block
'I will act as if what I do will make a difference.' William James
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'An individual who stands out, or disagrees or takes risks is a danger to such systems and is
effortlessly and, unconsciously sidelined.' John Ralston Saul 'Voltaire's Bastards.'
'Intelligence is knowing what to do when you don't know what to do.' Art Costa
'We have to learn to make our own way through a complex world without the benefit of an
accepted trustworthy route map.' Guy Claxton in 'Wise -Up'
'Know how - can do'. 'Don't know how - but will give it a go.' Extended 'Place Makers Motto' by
Bruce Hammonds
'It is amazing what ordinary people can do if they set out without preconceived notions.' Charles
Kettering US Inventor
'When the going gets tough the tough get going!' Saying
'The germ of an idea doesn't make the sculpture that stands up... so the next stage is hard work'
Csikszentmihalyi 'Nature of Insight'.
'It is what we think we know already that often prevents us from learning.' Calude Bernard,
French Psychologist 1813-78
'Powerful learning strategies can most simply be thought of what we presently do for gifted and
talented children. What works for them works just as well for 'at risk' students.' Henry M Levin
Accelerated Schools Project.
'One in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right.' Grateful
Dead
'All learning begins when our comfortable ideas turn out to be inadequate.' John Dewey
'Wherever you are be there.' Ralph Waldo Emerson
'We don't see things as they are; we see them as we are.' Anais Nin Diarist
'Don't go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.' Ralph
Waldo Emerson
'Destiny is not a matter of chance it is a matter of choice.' Anon
'Life is the path you beat while you walk it It's the walking that beats the path It is not the path
that makes the walk'. Antonio Machardo Poet
'Eagles don't flock - you have to find them one at a time.' Ross Perot Businessman.
'I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.' Winston Churchill
'We must believe in ourselves as no one else will believe in us, we must match our expectations
with the competence, courage and determination to succeed.' Rosalyn Sussman Yalow US Medical
Physicist
'In order to act, you must be somewhat insane .A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with
thinking.' Georges Clemenceau Premier of France 1917
'When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves he isn't a man of action.' Georges
Clemenceau Premier of France 1917- 20
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'You learn at your best when you have something you care about and can get pleasure in being
engaged in.' Howard Gardner
'The drive to learn is as strong as the sexual drive. It begins earlier and lasts longer.' Edward
Hall Anthropologist
'To be nobody - but - myself - in a world which is doing it's best, night and day, to make you
everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human can fight, and never stop
fighting.' e e cumming us poet
'What gives people superiority at a task is true intention. That makes you attuned to everything.'
Weiner Erhard
'If there is a way to do it better... find it!' Thomas Edison
'Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better'. Samuel Beckett
'You miss 100% of all the shots you never take,' Wayne Gretsky Ice Hockey Coach
'Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. You simply 'must do' things.' Ray Bradbury
'Getting the balance right between intuitive experimentation and conscious deliberation is vital.
Think too little and you may be stuck with bad habits. Think too much and you may become
paralyzed with self consciousness. Guy Claxton 'Wise Up'
'I have my faults but changing my tune is not one of them.' Samuel Beckett
'A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spend doing
nothing.' George Bernard Shaw
'The major difference between the 'best' and the 'average' is that the 'best' get as much
pleasure from practice as performance.' Ben Zander
'It takes a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.' Alfred North Whitehead.
'Education is knowing where to go to find out what you need to know; and its knowing how to use
the information you get.' William Feather US Author
'Reason can answer questions, but imagination has to ask them.' Ralph Gerard
'Thinking is past experience guiding present actions.' William Kilpatrick Educator 1917
'The golden rule is that there are no golden rules' G B Shaw
'Te wao nui tane ( about giant NZ Kauri trees 'Standing out from the crowd') Maori saying
'People whose talents are not exploited become disenchanted and disruptive.' Sir Terrance
Conran ( Decorator)
'Why don't we teach out children in school what they are? We should say to them, 'You are
unique... you have the capacity for anything. You are a marvel.'' Charles Handy
'Talent comes with an individual name tag.' Charles Handy
'The mind aware of itself is a pilot... vastly freer than a passenger mind.' Marilyn Ferguson
'We have two strategies for coping; the way of avoidance or the way of attention.' Marilyn
Ferguson
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'You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.' Mark Twain
'To go faster you must slow down.' John Brunner Author
'Fear of knowing is very deeply a fear of doing.' Abraham Maslow
'It is not so important to have all the answers as to be hungry for them.' Carol Ann Tomlinson
'The Differentiated Classroom'
'If everyone is thinking alike then somebody is not thinking.' George S Paton
'In any work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts' Ralph Waldo Emerson.
'Plan to be better today, but don't ever plan to be finished' Carol Ann Tomlinson
'If poetry comes as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.' John Keats
'The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.' William James
'If necessity is the mother of invention what was papa doing?' Anon
'Fledgling skiers make the most progress when they are pushed outside their comfort zone, but
not so far that they're sacred off the slopes altogether.' Ski Instructor
'Courage isn't lack of fear, after all, it's the ability to carry on despite the fear. General Omar
Bradley called courage the 'capacity to carry on properly even when scared half to death.'
Genuine risk takers not only have the guts to act in face of harrowing apprehension, they know
how to harness fear's energy' Farson and Keyes, 'Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins.'
Fearing failure is not necessarily a bad thing. Excitement is the flip side of fear. Any ten year old
on a skateboard knows that exhilaration is primarily fear transformed... Fear begins as a negative
sensation but can end on a positive note in the form of excitement, elation, exhilaration, euphoria,
even ecstasy. Enthusiasm is close cousin. So are intensity and concentration.' Farson and Keyes
'Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins.
'Winning and losing aren't all they're cracked up to be, but the trip to the destination is.' John
Wooden UCLA Basketball Coach
'the Samurai were fierce warriors. What is less known is how much of their thoughts were based
on achieving victory by avoiding thoughts of victory. They knew that focusing on the outcome of a
contest made defeat more likely... to achieve victory by becoming fully absorbed in the process
that would lead them there.' Farson and Keyes 'Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins.
Winning is not everything - but making the effort to win was... If you can't accept losing, you
can't win' Vince Lombardi Basketball coach.
'By not trying too hard, we avoid learning what our true potential is, and having to fulfill it. Doing
our best can be deeply threatening. It forces us to consider what we're actually capable of
accomplishing. Once we learn the lesson we can't unlearn it. Our true potential becomes a shining
light we can follow...' Farson and Keyes 'Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins'.
'An exaggerated fear of losing is the ugly sibling of an over emphasis on winning. Both cloud the
mind.... The players most urged to victory by mothers and fathers proved to be the most cautious.
Those whose parents cheered but didn't push them were then ones most likely to take chances and win'. Farson and Keynes 'Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins.'
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'I worry that whoever thought up the term 'quality control' thought if we didn't control it, it
would get out of hand.' Lily Tomlin Singer
'Looking at students work brings you face to face with your values.' Daniel Barron US Nat Reform
Faculty.
'To attract joy and create more success, try doing less but doing it with more enthusiasm.' Phillip
Humbert www.philliphumbert.com
'A little nonsense now and then, is cherished by the wisest men.' Roald Dahl ( Author)
'To develop a complete mind: study the science of art; study the art of science. Learn how to see.
Realize that everything connects to everything else.' Leonardo da Vinci
'Most advances in science comes from when a person for one reason or another is forced to
change fields.' Peter Burdon
'We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as in insoluble
problems. John W Gardner
'Imagination is more important than knowledge.' Albert Einstein
'Life is a series of lessons that have to be understood.' Thomas Carlyle
'A fear of foolishness keeps us from painting the pictures we would like to paint, composing the
poems, courting the lovers, making the friends, pursuing the jobs, starting the businesses. Those
who know this, can confront and transcend their fear of ridicule, are usually in a strong position...
Every path breaker has looked foolish, and been humiliated, yet society depends on them utterly...
Only those who are willing to risk looking foolish can invent a breakthrough.' Farson and Keyes
'Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins'
'The best work we do is on the verge of embarrassing us, always.' Arthur Miller Playwright.
'A fear of foolishness can never be conquered completely. Nor should it be... Deep down shyness
is a secret most charismatic people have.' Farson and Keyes
'We are all afraid. That's the thing that unites all truly successful people: fear, fear of failing,
fear of criticism, fear of letting down the tea in some way. That why they try so hard, that's why
they pay attention to detail and try to get every possible duck in a row. It's fear'. Peggy Noonan,
Ronald Reagan's Speech Writer.
Ana te toka te moana Live like a rock in the sea He akinga na nga tai washed by the tides Maori
saying
'It is not the biggest, the brightest or the best that will survive, but those who adapt the
quickest.' Charles Darwin
'The secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and a thousand things well.' Henry
Walpole
'I have learnt to say the word impossible with great caution.' Verner von Braun
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Future Edge Publications, 693 Carrington Road, RD1, New Plymouth, New Zealand
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