Randi Weingarten Quotes

I've got a very deep and abiding passion about education being far more than buildings and textbooks; it's what children bring into school with them.

It is urgent to shift from a traditional, authoritative, rote educational approach to a project-based and experiential approach. Specific hard skills are fundamental, but is even more important that students 'learn how to learn' and focus on crucial soft skills such as flexibility and the ability to adapt to change.

Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.

Kids need time for problem solving, critical thinking, applying knowledge through project-based instruction, working in teams, falling down and getting right back up to figure out what they didn't understand and why.

The arts are the most uniquely suited to provide young people with critical-thinking skills, problem-solving, teamwork and collaboration, empathy and tolerance and compassion, looking at the other point of views.

Especially girls, but any kids exposed to music programs and arts programs do much better on their tests. They have a better chance of going to college. They can focus better. You know, we're not just automatons learning how to work machines and do engineering and math and science. All of that's great, but you've got to build a whole person.

In an undergraduate business environment, the best learning experience is the interaction students have with each other. They need to learn from each other as much as from professors and lectures and other teaching tools.

Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants.

Doing real world projects is, I think, the best way to learn and also to engage the world and find out what the world is all about.

There is plenty of competition in a Glasser Quality School in that there is winning but no losing.

I have learned that, although I am a good teacher, I am a much better student, and I was blessed to learn valuable lessons from my students on a daily basis. They taught me the importance of teaching to a student - and not to a test.

A child educated only at school is an uneducated child.

I think there are definitely two types of student: the academic kids and the 50% who fail. It's very clear to see - it's fact. We're not doing enough for those who fail; they need a more physical, tactile approach, involving people skills, team-building, problem-solving, building things.

The mere imparting of information is not education.

Public television works hard to engage young learners and build the skills needed for a jump-start on life. We need our youngest to be curious, resilient and empathetic, and prepared for the jobs of the future.

Education must not simply teach work - it must teach Life.

The arts really matter in education. Sometimes the arts are the only way a student is unlocked. Sometimes it's the only way a student can communicate.

I think, in the West, we often discount the arts as nice but not that important. Certainly in America when we cut funding for schools, the arts are the first programs to go. But the arts built the things we need more than anything else: collaboration and co-operation and creativity.

It's similar to basketball: when you go to different gyms and win or lose, you learn something new. So when kids get out of the classroom, go to a new environment and meet different people, it opens their eyes to new things, and they have fun learning.

There's a lot to be said for an American-style liberal-arts education, which prevents young people from professionalizing right away.

Education has to be more than tests and formulas.

An education is not so much about making a living as making a person.

Students who learn to collaborate and negotiate - on Capitol Hill, in the board room, in everyday life - will outperform peers who have higher test scores.

Education cannot be effective unless it helps a child to open up himself to life.

The purpose of school should be to prepare kids for the rest of their lives, but too often what kids need to be prepared for is surviving the school day itself.