Our teachers are operating just as effective leaders in the business world do. They set a vision that most people think is crazy. They convince the kids why it's important to accomplish the goal. And they are totally relentless.
Wendy KoppRead
The idea that computers can ever replace teachers and schools reveals a deep lack of understanding about the role leadership plays in student success.
Interpretation
Computers cannot replace the essential human element of leadership in education.
This quote emphasizes that technology, although powerful, cannot fulfill the crucial role that teachers and educational leaders play in guiding and inspiring students. The essence of teaching involves human interaction, mentorship, and the social dynamics present in schools, which are vital for fostering student success.
In practice
In a debate about the future of education, this quote can be used to highlight the importance of human leadership.
Our teachers are operating just as effective leaders in the business world do. They set a vision that most people think is crazy. They convince the kids why it's important to accomplish the goal. And they are totally relentless.
Research shows that whether you are low-income or not, mindset is a bigger predictor of success than academic skills, and how students gain great academic skills and persevere in the face of challenges.
More often than not, the most effective leaders have been shaped by teaching successfully in high needs classrooms. Because of their experience, they know that it is possible for low-income children to achieve on an absolute scale and understand what we need to do to allow them to fulfill their potential.
There is a perception in our communities that we have low educational outcomes in low-income communities because kids aren't motivated or families don't care. We've discovered that is not the case.
In the long run, we will need many more African-American, Latino, and Native American leaders, and leaders from low-income communities, who can bring additional insight and a deeply grounded sense of urgency, and who are the most likely to inspire the necessary trust and engagement among students' parents and community leaders.
We are working essentially to build a leadership force of folks who will, during their first two years of teaching, actually put their kids on a different trajectory - not just survive as a new teacher, but actually help close the achievement gap for their kids.
Every society needs educated people, but the primary responsibility of educated people is to bring wisdom back into the community and make it available to others so that the lives they are leading make sense.
[On School Uniforms] Don't these schools do enough damage making all these kids think alike, now they have to make them look alike too? It's not a new idea, either. I first saw it in old newsreels from the 1930s, but it was hard to understand because the narration was in German.
I believe that the testing of the student's achievements in order to see if he meets some criterion held by the teacher, is directly contrary to the implications of therapy for significant learning.
Ideally, schools should be supportive environments for students. Unfortunately, zero-tolerance policies tend to funnel vulnerable students out of schools and into prisons, low-income jobs, and poverty.
I think picture books should stretch children. I think they should be full of wonderful, amazing words.
We need to understand that every time an elementary teacher captures the imagination of a child through the arts or music of language this nation gets a little stronger.
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