To push for excellence today without continuing to push for access for less privileged students is to undermine the crucial but incomplete gains that have been made. Equity and excellence cannot be divided.
Ernest L. BoyerRead
The assumption of all education is that learning will be directed toward constructive ends and I'm convinced that colleges should support students in their determination to be useful, self-sufficient, and productive.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Education should aim to help students become useful and self-sufficient individuals.
In this quote, Ernest L. Boyer emphasizes that the primary goal of education should be to cultivate productive and self-sufficient individuals who can contribute positively to society. He argues that colleges have a responsibility to support and guide students in their quest to become valuable members of their communities, reinforcing that the outcomes of education should align with constructive purposes.
Themes
EducationLearningSelf-SufficiencyProductivityConstructive
In practice
Example use cases
During a graduation speech to inspire students about their future roles in society.
More from Ernest L. Boyer
All quotes →To put it simply, school readiness means creating in this country a public love of children.
Ernest L. BoyerRead
Education must prepare students to be independent, self-reliant human beings. But education, at its best, also must help students go beyond their private interests, gain a more integrative view of knowledge, and relate their learning to the realities of life.
Ernest L. BoyerRead
In an era when careerism dominates the campus, is it too much to expect students to go beyond their private interests, learn about the world around them, develop a sense of civic and social responsibility, and discover how they can contribute to the common good?
Ernest L. BoyerRead
In the end, excellence in education means excellence in teaching, and if this country would give the status to first grade teachers that we give to full professors, this one act alone would revitalize the nation's schools.
Ernest L. BoyerRead
A poor surgeon hurts one person at a time. A poor teacher hurts 130.
Ernest L. BoyerRead
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