John Dewey reminded us that the value of what students do 'resides in its connection with a stimulation of greater thoughtfulness, not in the greater strain it imposes.

How we feel about our kids isn't as important as how they experience those feelings and how they regard the way we treat them.

The legendary statistical consultant W. Edwards Deming, . . . has called the system by which merit is appraised and rewarded 'the most powerful inhibitor to quality and productivity in the Western world' . . . it is simply unfair to the extent that employees are held responsible for what are, in reality, systemic factors that are beyond their control.

Educators remind us that what counts in a classroom is not what the teacher teaches; it’s what the learner learns.

You have to give them unconditional love. They need to know that even if they screw up, you love them. You don't want them to grow up and resent you or, even worse, parent the way you parented them.

Punishments erode relationships and moral growth.

Non-cooperative approaches, by contrast, almost always involve duplication of effort, since someone working independently must spend time and skills on problems that already have been encountered and overcome by someone else. A technical hitch, for example, is more likely to be solved quickly and imaginatively if scientists (including scientists from different countries) pool their talents rather than compete against one another.