If a kid really is retarded and can only come up to a certain level, he will still have more success if what he learns is connected with something important to him.

Daddy always asks me and I never know what to say”.

The scandal of education is that every time you teach something, you deprive a [student] of the pleasure and benefit of discovery.

I think we should allow for schools within schools, where 100 out of 500 kids may be organized by the way they work and what they do, and what they do often is more progressive. I would like to see a lot of kids of different ages, maybe even some adults, work together on a project.

Undoubtedly, there are kids with intellectual deficiencies or neurological problems. But a lot of kids shunted into special education classes are deficient only in a willingness to conform to the school pattern.They are just honest, brave kids who say, "I just won't take that, and I don't believe in what you're doing." If you give them an alternative to the usual classroom, they break free of a lot of inhibitions and bad associations, and they begin to learn.

For what is important when we give children a theorem to use is not that they should memorize it. What matters most is that by growing up with a few very powerful theorems one comes to appreciate how certain ideas can be used as tools to think with over a lifetime. One learns to enjoy and to respect the power of powerful ideas. One learns that the most powerful idea of all is the idea of powerful ideas.

Adults have been brainwashed into thinking that they can't really learn about computers without being taught, so it's more difficult for them to feel comfortable with a computer. Deep down, I think they're afraid of learning about computers.