Saturday, August 18, 2007

Saturday Quote

Reese is under the weather this morning, so we'll not be going on our hike today. It's probably for the best though, to have a low-key day. We moved Austen to college on Thursday and Friday and we're all still recovering from all the activity. It feels strange with one less family member home, but check out the Williams Family Blog for details on the move to San Marcos & check out Austen's dorm!

Here's my Saturday Quote:

“There must be a way to educate young children so that the great human qualities that we know are in them may be developed. But we’ll never do it as long as we are obsessed with tests. At faculty meetings we talk about how to reward the thinkers in our classes. Who is kidding whom? No amount of rewards and satisfactions obtained in the small group thinking sessions will make up to Monica for what she felt today, faced by a final test that she knew she couldn't do and was going to fail.

Pleasant experiences don’t make up for painful ones. No child, once painfully burned, would agree to be burned again, however enticing the reward. For all our talk and good intentions, there is much more stick than carrot in school, and while this remains so, children are going to adopt a strategy aimed above all else at staying out of trouble. How can we foster a joyous, alert, wholehearted participation in life if we build all our schooling around the holiness of getting “right answers?”

How Children Fail by John Holt

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