The first task in teaching is to bring to consciousness what the students already believe by virtue of their personal experiences about themselves and society.
Paul WellstoneRead
I saw as a teacher how, if you take that spark of learning that those children have, and you ignite it, you can take a child from any background to a lifetime of creativity and accomplishment.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of nurturing and igniting a child's innate curiosity and passion for learning to lead them to success.
Paul Wellstone highlights the transformative power of education in a child's life. By recognizing and fostering the natural curiosity and enthusiasm for learning that children possess, teachers can inspire individuals from diverse backgrounds to achieve greatness and realize their full creative potential. This process not only affects academic success but also shapes their future endeavors and accomplishments.
In practice
In a graduation speech to inspire young minds.
The first task in teaching is to bring to consciousness what the students already believe by virtue of their personal experiences about themselves and society.
A politics that is not sensitive to the concerns and circumstances of people's lives, a politics that does not speak to and include people, is an intellectually arrogant politics that deserves to fail.
The future will not belong to those who sit on the sidelines. The future will not belong to the cynics. The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
I think the future also will not belong to those who are cynical or those who stand on the sidelines
Politics is not about power. Politics is not about money. Politics is not about winning for the sake of winning. Politics is about the improvement of people's lives.
What the poor, the weak, and the inarticulate desperately require is power, organization, and a sense of identity and purpose, not rarefied advice of political scientists.
New insights fail to get put into practice because they conflict with deeply held internal images of how the world works...images that limit us to familiar ways of thinking and acting. That is why the discipline of managing mental models - surfacing, testing, and improving our internal pictures of how the world works - promises to be a major breakthrough for learning organizations.
Colleges hate geniuses, just as convents hate saints.
When I was 10 years old, I loved - I loved books, and I used to haunt the secondhand bookshop. And I found a little book I could just afford, and I bought it, and I took it home. And I climbed up my favorite tree, and I read that book from cover to cover. And that was Tarzan of the Apes. I immediately fell in love with Tarzan.
Some years ago I became president of Columbia University and learned within 24 hours to be ready to speak at the drop of a hat, and I learned something more, the trustees were expected to be ready to speak at the passing of the hat.
When a child makes a mistake or fails to accomplish a certain goal, we must avoid any word or action which indicates that we consider him a failure. 'Too bad that didn't work.' 'I'm sorry it didn't work out for you.' We need to separate the deed from the doer.
When you write what you know, you stay in control. One of the first things I encourage my writing students to do is to lose control - say what they want to say, break structure.
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