People seldom see the halting and painful steps by which the most insignificant success is achieved.
Anne Sullivan MacyObedience is the gateway through which knowledge, yes, and love, too, enter the mind of the child.
Anne Sullivan MacyWe are afraid of ideas, of experimenting, of change. We shrink from thinking a problem through to a logical conclusion.
Anne Sullivan MacyYou cannot touch the clouds, you know; but you feel the rain and know how glad the flowers and the thirsty earth are to have it after a hot day. You cannot touch love either; but you feel the sweetness that it pours into everything. Without love you would not be happy or want to play.
Anne Sullivan MacyIf my parents didn't push me and didn't support education, I probably wouldn't be here today.... Regardless of whatever they went through and how they may have been treated, they felt education was important. So, it's easier when you have the parents who support it, rather than those who don't.
Anne Sullivan MacyMy heart is singing for joy this morning! A miracle has happened! The light of understanding has shone upon my little pupil's mind, and behold, all things are changed!
Anne Sullivan MacyLanguage grows out of life, out of its needs and experiences...Language and knowledge are indissolubly connected; they are interdependent. Good work in language presupposes and depends on a real knowledge of things.
Anne Sullivan MacyIt is a rare privilege to watch the birth, growth, and first feeble struggles of a living mind; this privilege is mine.
Anne Sullivan MacyI cannot explain it; but when difficulties arise, I am not perplexed or doubtful. I know how to meet them.
Anne Sullivan MacyThe wrong things are predominantly stressed in the schools - things remote from the student's experience and need.
Anne Sullivan MacyWe are bothered a good deal by people who assume the responsibility of the world when God is neglectful.
Anne Sullivan MacyIs it not true, then, that my life with all its limitation touches at many points the life of the World Beautiful? Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be, therein to be content.
Anne Sullivan MacyIf the child is left to himself, he will think more and better, if less showily. Let him go and come freely, let him touch real things and combine his impressions for himself.
Anne Sullivan MacyI am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built upon the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think. Whereas if the child is left to himself, he will think more and better , if less "showily." Let him come and go freely, let him touch real things and combine his impressions for himself... Teaching fills the mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of before the child can develop independent ideas out of actual experiences.
Anne Sullivan MacyNo matter how mistaken Communist ideas may be, the experience and knowledge gained by trying them out have given a tremendous impetus to thought and imagination.
Anne Sullivan MacyEvery renaissance comes to the world with a cry, the cry of the human spirit to be free.
Anne Sullivan MacyWe imagine that we want to escape our selfish and commonplace existence, but we cling desperately to our chains.
Anne Sullivan MacyOur material eye cannot see that a stupid chauvinism is driving us from one noisy, destructive, futile agitation to another.
Anne Sullivan MacyToo often, I think, children are required to write before they have anything to say. Teach them to think and read and talk without self-repression, and they will write because they cannot help it.
Anne Sullivan MacyA strenuous effort must be made to train young people to think for themselves and take independent charge of their lives.
Anne Sullivan MacyI never taught language for the purpose of teaching it; but invariably used language as a medium for the communication of thought; thus the learning of language was coincident with the acquisition of knowledge.
Anne Sullivan MacyYou can't touch love, but you can feel the sweetness that it pours into everything.
Anne Sullivan MacyEducation in the light of present-day knowledge and need calls for some spirited and creative innovations both in the substance and the purpose of current pedagogy.
Anne Sullivan MacyThe processes of teaching the child that everything cannot be as he wills it are apt to be painful both to him and to his teacher.
Anne Sullivan MacyIt's a great mistake, I think, to put children off with falsehoods and nonsense, when their growing powers of observation and discrimination excite in them a desire to know about things.
Anne Sullivan MacyCertain periods in history suddenly lift humanity to an observation point where a clear light falls upon a world previously dark.
Anne Sullivan MacyThe truth is not wonderful enough to suit the newspapers; so they enlarge upon it, and invent ridiculous embellishments.
Anne Sullivan MacyWe all like stories that make us cry. It's so nice to feel sad when you've nothing in particular to feel sad about.
Anne Sullivan MacyWe have no firm hold on any knowledge or philosophy that can lift us out of our difficulties.
Anne Sullivan MacyI am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built up on the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think.
Anne Sullivan MacyI think that there are some teachers that do a very good job of incorporating culture and history. And there are some teachers who could use a little more help in that area.
Anne Sullivan MacyWhy, it is as easy to teach the name of an idea, if it is clearly formulated in the child's mind, as to teach the name of an object.
Anne Sullivan Macy