No human being will work hard at anything unless they believe that they are working for competence.
The ultimate use of power is to empower others.
Today much of what we call education is merely knowledge gathering and remembering. Problem solving and thinking, never strong parts of our educational system, have been downgraded in all but a few scientific subjects.
Don't marry someone you would not be friends with if there was no sex between you.
Unlike the weak, the strong neither give up nor are driven by pain into rash or stupid behavior. They don't like pain any more than anyone else, but they are not willing to settle for short-term relief if it means reducing their options later. They don't rob Peter to pay Paul, they face reality now.
A friend of mine, a dedicated golfer, shot a hole in one playing by himself. Disaster.
The day we stop playing will be the day we stop learning.
To counter the avoidance of intellectual challenge and responsibility, we must reduce the domination of certainty in education.
If everyone could learn that what is right for me does not make it right for anyone else, the world would be a much happier place.
If you want to change attitudes, start with a change in behavior. In other words, begin to act the part, as well as you can, of the person you would rather be, the person you most want to become. Gradually, the old, fearful person will fade away.
To be depressed or neurotic is passive. It happened to us; we are its victim, and we have no control over it.
Every single major push in education has made it worse and right now it's really bad because everything we've done is de-humanizing education. It's destroying the possibility of the teacher and the student having a warm, friendly, intellectual relationship.
Prior to being allowed to enter the profession, prospective teachers should be asked to talk with a group of friendly students for at least half an hour and be able to engage them in an interesting conversation about any subject the prospective teacher wants to talk about.
You can acquire a lot of knowledge without ever going to school.
Education is the process in which we discover that learning adds quality to our lives. Learning must be experienced.
What students lack in school is an intellectual relationship or conversation with the teacher.
When we label anyone 'bad', we will have more trouble dealing with him than if we could have settled for a lesser label.
Too many of us fail to fulfill our needs because we say no rather than yes, or perhaps later in life, yes when we should say no.
We are driven by five genetic needs: survival, love and belonging, power, freedom, and fun.
I think it is totally wrong and terribly harmful if education is defined as acquiring knowledge.
What happened in the past that was painful has a great deal to do with what we are today, but revisiting this painful past can contribute little or nothing to what we need to do now.
Sex is on the minds of most people, especially those who shouldn't be having it.
We don't focus as much in schools on educational knowledge which requires thinking and application, as we do on acquiring facts.
Without pay, no human being will work up to their ability if he or she is not cared for and respected.
We can pay teachers a hundred thousand dollars a year, and we'll do nothing to improve our schools as long as we keep the A, B, C, D, F grading system.
We may be up against a stone wall, but we don't have to bloody our heads against it unless we choose to.
There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.
This is at the heart of all good education, where the teacher asks students to think and engages them in encouraging dialogues, constantly checking for understanding and growth.
There is plenty of competition in a Glasser Quality School in that there is winning but no losing.
The faster you go, the more students you leave behind. It doesn't matter how much or how fast you teach. The true measure is how much students have learned.
Since there will be no one left to talk peace after the next war, it makes good sense to break with tradition and hold the peace conference first.
Effective teaching may be the hardest job there is.
William Glasser was an American psychiatrist.
