“I can honestly say I have never once heard an extended conversation about children or about teaching theory in any teachers’ room I’ve been in” (pg 40). Ever been inspired by someone? Their words? Their life? Their teachings? Nope, never? Interesting. “I’m confident that as they gain self-knowledge they’ll also become self-teachers - and only self-teaching has any lasting value” (pg 31). Why anything fails, if it believe self to be the one, true determiner of truth and happiness and purpose. “At the core of this elite system of education is the belief that self-knowledge is the only basis of true knowledge” and that is why it fails. “The truth is schools don’t really teach anything except how to obey orders” (pg 21). The fact that you “win awards” and think this way IS the problem - YOU are the problem. “School is a twelve-year jail sentence where bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned.

“Don’t be too quick to vote for radical school reform if you want to continue getting a paycheck” (pg 9), and don’t expect to change the world if your chief concern is getting a paycheck. this power to control what children will think lets me separate successful students from failures very easily (pg 7), but bad teachers require this, foster this, and do little about it when it happens. 'Good students wait for a teacher to tell them what to do. I forgot it wasn’t mine and wrote too many curse words in the margins. I will, however, have to buy her a new book. I’m glad I read it, but mainly because I found myself disagreeing with it - vehemently. I was recommended this book by a mother of one of my students.

Meaning, not disconnected facts, is what sane human beings seek, and education is a set of codes for processing raw data into meaning” (pg 3). Confusion is thrust upon kids by too many strange adults, each working alone with only the thinnest relationship with each other, pretending, for the most part, to an expertise they do not posses. But quality education entails learning about something in depth. “The logic of the school-mind is that it is better to leave school with a toolkit of superficial jargon derived from economics, sociology, natural science, and so on than with one genuine enthusiasm.

Dumbing us down