If there's hell below, we're all gonna go.
Curtis MayfieldRead
My teacher told me I'd never amount to anything. I left high school at 15, after one year. But my real teachers were all the people around me. And I was a good listener.
Interpretation
Formal education is not the only source of learning; real-life experiences and interactions can teach us valuable lessons.
In this quote, Curtis Mayfield reflects on his early experiences in education, where he felt underestimated by traditional schooling. He emphasizes the importance of informal learning through observation and listening to those around him, suggesting that valuable life lessons often come from our interactions with others rather than from formal educational settings.
In practice
During a graduation speech to inspire students to seek knowledge beyond the classroom.
If there's hell below, we're all gonna go.
How many 54-year-old quadriplegics are putting albums out? You just have to deal with what you got, try to sustain yourself as best you can, and look to the things that you can do.
Reading the script, I started feeling very deeply bad for Freddie. Between his friends, his partners, and his woman, he was catching a hard time. 'Freddie's Dead' came to me immediately.
I was a very observant child. Almost anything could become a song to me.
I don't like to appoint myself to nothing, knowing I'm no better than anybody else. But it always makes me feel good to know I try to do the best I can, and those who might observe say, 'Hey, I can take a little something from that person.'
Everything was a song. Every conversation, every personal hurt, every observance of people in stress, happiness and love... if you could feel it, I could feel it. And I could write a song about it.
I've learned quite a lot, over the years, by avoiding what I was supposed to be learning.
Education is identical with helping the child realize his potentialities. The opposite of education is manipulation, which is based on the absence of faith in the growth of potentialities and the connection that a child will be right only if the adults put into him what is desirable and suppress what seems to be undesirable.
My books hold between their covers every story I've ever known and still remember, or have now forgotten, or may one day read; they fill the space around me with ancient and new voices.
When I had no money, and a great book came out, I couldn't get it. I had to wait. I love the idea that I have hardcover books here and at home that I haven't read yet. That's how I view that I'm rich. I have hardcover books I may never read.
Research confirms that great teachers change lives. Students with one highly effective elementary school teacher are more likely to go to college, less likely to become pregnant as teens, and earn tens of thousands more over their lifetimes.
I should be sorry if I only entertained them. I wish to make them better.
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