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.

Unconditional parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason.

It's not just that humiliating people, of any age, is a nasty and disrespectful way of treating them. It's that humiliation, like other forms of punishment, is counterproducti ve. 'Doing to' strategies - as opposed to those that might be described as 'working with' - can never achieve any result beyond temporary compliance, and it does so at a disturbing cost.

In outstanding classrooms, teachers do more listening than talking, and students do more talking than listening. Terrific teachers often have teeth marks on their tongues.

Saying you taught it but the student didn't learn it is like saying you sold it but the customer didn't buy it.

Whoever said there's no such thing as a stupid question never looked carefully at a standardized test.

We learn most readily, most naturally, most effectively, when we start with the big picture - precisely when the basics don't come first.