When a child is thriving, there is no reason to spend time assessing intelligences. But when a child is NOT thriving - in school or at home - that is the time to apply the lens of multiple intelligences and see whether one can find ways to help the child thrive in different environments.

The wonderful thing about the theater is that it can emphasize BOTH our diversity AND our common humanity. In many ways, the world of Shakespeare (or Aeschylus or Racine) is totally different from our world; and yet any human being can look through the differences in dress and mores and discover our common problems, passions, and potentials.

If you think education is expensive, try estimating the cost of ignorance.

I think that every educator, indeed every human being, is concerned with what is true and what is not; what experiences to cherish and which ones to avoid; and how best to relate to other human beings. We differ in how conscious we are of these questions; how reflective we are about our own stances; whether we are aware of how these human virtues are threatened by critiques (philosophical, cultural) and by technologies (chiefly the digital media). A good educator should help us all to navigate our way in this tangled web of virtues.

No academic ever expects to be taken seriously by more than three other people, because really, we write for three people in our field.

Teaching which ignores the realities of children will be rejected as surely as any graft which attempts to ignore the body's immune system.

In the United States, if you ask teachers, "Are there children whom we should call 'gifted?'", many if not most will say 'No.' That's the politically correct answer. But if you then ask the teacher to rank order students in terms of how well they paint or write or dance, they'll have little difficulty in doing so.