I spent a lot of time not in school, so I didn't have deep relationships with kids my own age.
If you have a kid who goes to kindergarten and doesn't know what a circle is, doesn't know what red and green are, and doesn't know what right and left are, by the time he learns those things, the rest of the class is far ahead of him.
As someone who attended six different public schools across America, went to Harvard, and subsequently became a tutor in Manhattan's affluent Upper East Side, I've witnessed firsthand the differences in learning styles between public school educations and private.
Just because someone has gone to an elite school and college does not make him smarter than the person who has grown up on street knowledge.
As far as intellectual training was concerned, my nine years from seven to sixteen were practically wasted.
Schools are not equal. There are still the haves and the have-nots.
Class division in knowledge goes deeper than any other class division.
Those who do not read have no advantage over those who cannot read.
As long as acquiring knowledge is the educational goal of schools, educational opportunities will be limited, as they are now, to affluent families.
If learners do not have a roof under which they can learn we are already setting them up for failure.
During the year, our schools are busy slashing P.E. and recess to make more time for math. During the summer, we get ourselves worked into a tizzy that our children will forget their fractions.
Boys are 30 percent more likely than girls to drop out of school. In Canada, five boys drop out for every three girls. Girls outperform boys now at every level, from elementary school to graduate school.
Half of Afghanistan’s newly created schools have no actual buildings, many lack teachers, most students never graduate, and one-fifth of the registered students are permanently absent.
I am not an educated man. I never had an opportunity to learn anything except how to fight.
I never really get to go to school because I am always on tour or with my father. There is a tutor most of the time, but usually I am working so I never get to do the lessons. The worst thing about maths is all the kids are ahead of me because they go to school.
The consequences of substandard teaching go far beyond whether college or a good job is in reach. They affect earning potential, with implications throughout a person's life.
I was a disadvantaged child from a non-educated family, yet I had the advantage of being in the company of great teachers.
