If children feel safe, they can take risks, ask questions, make mistakes, learn to trust, share their feelings, and grow.

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

In a word, learning is decontextualized. We break ideas down into tiny pieces that bear no relation to the whole. We give students a brick of information, followed by another brick, followed by another brick, until they are graduated, at which point we assume they have a house. What they have is a pile of bricks, and they don't have it for long.

Each time I visit such a classroom, where the teacher is more interested in creating a democratic community than in maintaining her position of authority, I’m convinced all over again that moving away from consequences and rewards isn’t just realistic - it’s the best way to help kids grow into good learners and good people.

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

People will typically be more enthusiastic where they feel a sense of belonging and see themselves as part of a community than they will in a workplace in which each person is left to his own devices

If a child is off-task...mayb e the problem is not the child...maybe it's the task.