Back cover DRAFT

What words could inspire permanent change,

transforming our schools into “academies of the future”?
What innovative methods could teachers use if computers
took over instructing students in the basics of language
and math?
These quotes will introduce you to new ways to prepare
students for the global economy.

Will Sutherland, founder of QBE Schools (Qualified By Experience), was

trained as a teacher at St Luke’s College Exeter, majoring in Physical
Education, Maths and Education. He was
responsible for Junior Expeditions at Aiglon
College. He eventually stayed 16 years as
Housemaster. When he returned to the UK in
1989, he trained young executives in situational
leadership, team building, and problem solving,
using a 40 foot sailing boat as a leveling
environment.

Cardiff Bay Development Agency retained him as

their waters use expert and wrote the strategy that is being implemented
today to regenerate the economy in and around Cardiff. He has continued
this work within a network of consultants on marine tourism projects
throughout Europe.

Will has also been working as a personal Mentor to business leaders and
6th form students during their ‘A’Levels and on through college, usually
working closely with the student, parents and college together.

He has recently opened a Sea School in Dartmouth, Devon, UK, and is also
working on the development of new techniques for the use of IT in teaching
and learning. This book is part of the training for new teachers.

Steve McCrea is a teacher in Fort Lauderdale and an advocate of using

video in the classroom. His channel (youtube.com/visualandactive)
documents ways that teachers can bring technology into the classroom.

Published by iUniverse

A Book of Quotations
The QBE Book of

Quotations for
Teachers, Parents,
Principals and
Students

Let's
Expect
More From Our Schools
With Commentaries by
Will Sutherland, QBE Schools
and Steve McCrea

A Book of Quotations
Introduction
(A Word to the Reader)

What slogans have inspired us? What quotes have stuck in

our collective consciousness? What moved a nation or a
government to change direction?

A day that will live in infamy.

Franklin Roosevelt, 8 December 1941

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in
a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their
skin but by the content of their character.
Martin Luther King, Jr., 28 August 1963

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon

in this decade and do the other things, not because they are
easy, but because they are hard, ...because that challenge is
one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to
postpone, and one which we intend to win.
John F. Kennedy, 12 September 1962

Each of these quotes were given during a time when a shift in

opinion was needed to support reform or a change in policy.

Among teachers and administrators, there are some

quotations that serve as proverbs -- wisdom to guide our
behavior:

“Students might forget what we taught them, but they will

always remember how we treated them.”

A Book of Quotations
(origin unknown, often quoted in teachers' manuals)

“We are looking for a guide on the side, not a sage on the
stage.”
(unclear who said it frst)

“I never let school get in the way of my education”

(Mark Twain)

“We don't need no thought control” (Pink Floyd)

In this small book you will fnd quotations that, if taken to

heart, could inspire more enlightened procedures. Some of
these statements come from books by educational pioneers
like Dennis Littky, Howard Gardner and Thomas Hoerr.

At the end of this book is a list of the sources – yes, we

encourage you to do further reading. There is also a list of
the links to youtube videos and websites where we found
some of the quotes.

Our comments about the quotes are intended to guide you

toward implementing reforms. If you are a parent, you have
the “power of one.” One parent can direct at least $5,000
away from a school that has not changed to meet the
demands of a global economy. One parent can shift that
money to a “school of the future.”

This book could inspire thousands of parents to make the

switch. I hope you will be one of those pioneering parents
who invests in a school of the future.
Steve McCrea Will Sutherland
Fort Lauderdale, Florida Haywards Heath, West Sussex
July 2010

A Book of Quotations
A Book of Quotations
A
Action
In order that Evil shall triumph, it is sufcient that Good Men
do nothing.
Edmund Burke

Authentic Work
The best way to prepare [to be a programmer] is to write
programs, and to study great programs that other people
have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the
Computer Science Center and fshed out listings of their
operating system.
Bill Gates

Comment: Littky comments about the importance of making

work “real” and so his students go on Internships, spending
two days of the week shadowing mentors.

B
Be Yourself
Courage doesn't always road. Sometimes courage is the quiet
voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again
tomorrow.”
Mary Anne Radmacher

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who

A Book of Quotations
mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.
Dr. Seuss

Belief systems
School is the advertising agency which makes you believe
that you need the society as it is.
Ivan Illich

Boredom
School days are the unhappiest in the whole span if human
existence. They are full of dull, unintelligible tasks, new and
unpleasant ordinances, with brutal violations of common
sense and common decency.” Henry Louis Mencken

School sucks.

– Dr. Tae, in a youtube talk to students

To sentence a man of true genius, to the drudgery of a

school is to put a racehorse on a treadmill.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Bullying, Ageism, Racism

I never learned hate at home, or shame. I had to go to school
for that.
Dick Gregory
quotesea.com/quotes/with/bullying

A Book of Quotations
A Tale about Bullying
In my frst term at Aiglon, I shared a room with another boy,
on the top foor of Clairmont. There was a very nervous boy
who occupied a single room on the same foor. Me and my
roommate had been teasing him with a silly made-up story
about there being the ghost of a boy who had died of an
asthmatic attack in that very room, and that his ghost
resided in a water tank in the room and came out to haunt
the room periodically. I concocted a story about how the
dead boy had had a club foot, and that when his ghost
appeared "You can hear him wheezing and
clumping/scraping his club foot down the hallway at night.”
My roommate and I then conspired so that one night, one of
us made the clumping/scraping noises down the hallway at
about 2 a.m., and the other attempted to enter the boy's
room with a bed sheet over his head, wheezing and
moaning. It was very funny and we (me and my roommate)
were laughing hugely about it afterwards.

But then the housemaster, Christopher Reynolds, took me

aside the next day and told me to put an end to this and
made me see that what I thought was teasing and joking
around was psychological bullying and that it could make the
victim's life a misery. He made it clear that there was no
place for bullying in the school and that if I kept it up, then
they would have to consider asking me to leave.

That hit me hard because there was no way I had intended to

bully the boy - I already knew that I detested bullies. I
subsequently apologised to him for the teasing, and also
made a special efort to be friendly and helpful towards him
henceforth. He developed a trust in me such that, when I
became a prefect, he would sometimes come to me for
advice/help if he was being bullied by other boys (he was a

A Book of Quotations
natural victim). But the thing is, CR's approach - the school's
approach - was to help the individual student to nurture the
positive and push out the negative aspects in their own
behaviours.
Iain Barraclough, alumnus of Aiglon College

A Book of Quotations
Traditional Approaches to Bullying
It's getting to the students who are being bullied and those
who are doing the bullying. If you can eliminate either group
- if those who are being bullied can stand up for themselves,
or the teasing stops - the oppression will end.
~ Sasha Neumann

Gossip harms relationships and that's why it's bad. While we

all do it at times, there's a point where it crosses the line and
becomes bullying if it damages friendships and causes
people to dislike someone.
~ Rachel Simmons

A Book of Quotations
C
Curiosity
"See that bird? What kind of a bird is that?" And I said, "I
haven't the slightest idea." He said, "It's a brown throated
thrush. In Italian it is a -------; in Portuguese it is called a
------; in Japanese, they say -------. Now, you know in
many languages the name of that bird and yet you know
absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You only know
about humans in diferent places and what they call the bird.
Now, let's look at the bird."
Richard Feynman

Curriculum
Given the widening array of possibilities, there’s no reason
that every child must master the sciences, algebra, geometry,
biology, or any of the rest of the standard high school
curriculum that has barely changed in half a century.”
Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor (Clinton Administration)

D
Deschooling
Everywhere the hidden curriculum of schooling initiates the
citizen to the myth that bureaucracies guided by scientifc
knowledge are efcient and benevolent. Everywhere this
same curriculum instills in the pupil the myth that increased
production will provide a better life. And everywhere it
develops the habit of self-defeating consumption of services
and alienating production, the tolerance for institutional

A Book of Quotations
dependence, and the recognition of institutional rankings.
The hidden curriculum of school does all this in spite of
contrary eforts undertaken by teachers and no matter what
ideology prevails.

Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society

ecobooks.com/books/deschooling.htm

Complete text:
preservenet.com/theory/Illich/Deschooling/intro.html

Difcult Work
I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined
this government: "I have nothing to ofer but blood, toil,
tears and sweat." … We have before us an ordeal of the
most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long
months of struggle and of sufering.
Winston Churchill, First Speech as Prime Minister May 13,
1940 to House of Commons.

Teachers say that they're spending too much time working.

If this is going to be a special place, they're going to HAVE to
work. What do they think, that this is just going to happen?
Littky, journal entry, p. 175 in Doc.

We have a long struggle ahead of us. I feel the most

resistance from staf. This school is going to take more of
your time than a regular school. It will be a great school, not
a regular school. Let's get excited about meeting with
parents and discussing their children. Let's take it as a
challenge to see how many we can get to come in. I ask that

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people have a positive attitude about solving any problem
that arises. If we don't have this attitude, we should not be
educating our youth.
Littky, p. 175 in Doc, memo to staf.

Comment: The work ahead is indeed difcult. We can take

some inspiration from Churchill and commit ourselves to the
next generation. Littky's journal entry and memo to staf
indicate the importance of investing time to get the results
we all want.

Digital Education
[Schools] can embrace digital solutions—such as online
courses and independent studies—to replace face-to-face
courses cut during difcult budget times. In addition,
tutoring companies will perfect their ability to deliver help to
struggling kids digitally.
To help teachers cope with these changes, universities will
need to redesign teacher preparation programs
to emphasize how to diferentiate instruction for
students. State curriculum committees must redesign
standards documents to make them more fexible, and
policymakers must redesign teacher evaluation programs to
reward innovative educators who create individualized
learning environments for students.
...[T]he work of the classroom teacher will change
drastically. Instead of leading groups through standalone
lessons, teachers will increasingly match individuals with
learning solutions aligned with their interests and
abilities. Content will be packaged and delivered
asynchronously, allowing students to work independently
and revisit lessons as needed. Face-to-face experiences
will be combined with digital interactions; geographic

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boundaries between teachers and students—as well as
between learners—will become increasingly irrelevant.
Ferriter, William M. “Preparing to Teach Digitally,”

Comment: Ferriter has described how Computer Assisted

Instruction (CAI) can seamlessly integrate with group
learning (lecturing or discussions led by the facilitator) and
with mentoring by Skype.

Dropouts
See School Leavers

A Book of Quotations
E
Edu-Preneuring
The blog called edReformer.com has one big goal: catalyze
talent and investment to produce and scale learning
innovation.

Here’s the logic chain behind that goal:

1. Excellence and equity in education is the most important

issue for the American economy and society–even more so
for developing economies.

2. Expanding access to high quality learning experiences

requires innovation particularly new learning tools and
formats

3. Learning online holds great promise for improved

productivity and expanded access–personalized digital
learning and schools that blend the best of online and onsite
learning have the potential to close the global secondary gap
(i.e., limited access to college/careers for low income
students).

4. Producing and scaling innovation requires focused

investment suggesting an important and complementary role
for the private sector; most important advances will be the
result of public-private partnerships.

5. Expanding opportunities for education entrepreneurs and

the ability to approach old problems in new ways requires
new advocacy strategies, particularly the use of new media.

A Book of Quotations
We’re more a Views site than a News site, although it will
increasingly be a great source of what’s happening in the
edu-innovation space. EdBase will soon be the best resource
for information about edupreneurs and folks supporting their
success.

We interview edupreneurs and invite guest bloggers to lift

the voice of people creating the future of learning.

EdReformer is becoming a community. We’ll add new ways

for you to connect with each other. Together we can help
more kids connect with viable life options by learning more,
cheaper, and faster than ever before. Tom Vander Ark
EdReformer.com “The Logic Behind edReformer”

Exhibitions
In a Glasser Quality School there is no such thing as a closed
book test. Students are told to get out their notes and open
their books. There is no such thing as being forbidden to ask
the teacher or another student for help.
William Glasser

Extra Efort
What we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean
would be less because of that missing drop. -Mother Theresa

F
Future
We are now at a point where we must educate our children in

A Book of Quotations
what no one knew yesterday, and prepare our schools for
what no one knows yet.
~ Margaret Mead

Comment: This is the basic argument that Dr. Fischler

makes in TheStudentIsTheClass.com. We need fexibility.
Robert Reich's comment (under “Curriculum”) applies here,
too, and should be on to every principal's wall.

G
Goals
We should develop students who know how to:
identify problems,
use their intelligences to solve problems and create
products,
demonstrate their understanding in a variety of ways, and
work with others.

Educators should:
personalize education and work to individualize instruction;
enable students to develop and use their areas of strength;
view students' parents as partners and educate them, too;
ofer an environment that supports faculty growth; and
demonstrate that students are prepared for the future.
Becoming a Multiple Intelligences School
Thomas Hoerr

A Book of Quotations
H
High Tech High
Too much of the traditional high school curriculum today is
made up of fragmented and decontextualized knowledge
that doesn't have any meaning for many students. Project-
based learning works because it gives students a reason to
embrace the academic curriculum; they recognize that they
have to know math or history or physics to compete their
projects.
Larry Rosenstock, founder
High Tech High, San Diego, Calif.

I
Individualized Learning
State curriculum committees must redesign standards
documents to make them more fexible, and policymakers
must redesign teacher evaluation programs to reward
innovative educators who create individualized learning
environments for students.
Ferriter, William M. “Preparing to Teach Digitally”

Innovations
Educational innovators still assume that educational
institutions function like funnels for the programs they
package. Education is assumed to be the result of an
institutional process managed by the educator. As long as

A Book of Quotations
the relations continue to be those between a supplier and a
consumer, educational research will remain a circular
process. It will amass scientifc evidence in support of the
need for more educational packages and for their more
deadly accurate delivery to the individual customer, just as a
certain brand of social science can prove the need for the
delivery of more military treatment.
Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society, p. 69

Internships
On Career Day in high school, you don't walk around looking
for the cartoon guy.
Gary Larson

J
Journals and Diaries
When I was still in prep school - 14, 15 - I started keeping
notebooks, journals. I started writing, almost like landscape
drawing or life drawing. I never kept a diary, I never wrote
about my day and what happened to me, but I described
things.
John Irving

Knowledge
You can acquire a lot of knowledge without ever going to
school.
William Glasser

A Book of Quotations
K

L
Large Schools
The troubles with comprehensive high schools are not
confned to the inner cities. More than fve thousand
students drop out of American high schools every school
day, in middle-class suburbs, rural towns and everywhere in
between.
It may take 10,000 new schools to address the problem.
And it may take $10 billion in public and private funding to
fx the high schools we have and to create the new ones we
need....New schools are particularly important for
underserved students, increasing their educational options,
reducing enrollments in overcrowded schools, and leveraging
change in other existing schools through competition for
students.
Tom vander Ark

Life Lessons
The diference between school and life? In school, you're
taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given a
test that teaches you a lesson.
Tom Bodett

A Book of Quotations
Lifelong Learning
School divides life into two segments, which are increasingly
of comparable length. As much as anything else, schooling
implies custodial care for persons who are declared
undesirable elsewhere by the simple fact that a school has
been built to serve them.
Ivan Illich

M
Memorization
Give 21st Century Students Time to Understand
We can all agree that it is important for students to graduate
from high school. However, what happens when “graduating”
from high school does not necessarily represent an
understanding of the basic skills needed in college and the
workplace? According to the Sun-Sentinel, more than half of
the students entering public colleges and universities in
Florida need remedial classes in math, reading, and writing
prior to starting their college classes. The problem is NOT
the amount of money we are putting into our public schools;
rather, the structure and curriculum of public education
needs reform. Memorizing information for the FCAT or
College Placement Test is not going to equip students with
the skills needed for the 21st century.
Students need to learn to analyze, understand, and explain
rather than memorize, recite, and regurgitate facts and
information. A student cannot be expected to master division
if he or she does not know what dividing numbers truly
means. Subjects—particularly reading and math—need to be
taught on a student’s individual timeframe. Learning should

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be measured against each student’s past markers of
progress. We must enable students to learn at varying rates
so they come to understand and analyze information in a
way that is useful and accessible both to them personally and
for the 21st century.
We must change our expectations about time and make
conceptual understanding (not wrote repetition) our frst
priority.
A. Fischler

For more information, please see "College Students Lack Math,

Writing Skills: 55% Are Taking Remedial Classes After Entering Schools
in Florida" by Scott Travis. Sun-Sentinel, March 1 st, 2010.

Mission of Schools
If the school sends out children with a desire for knowledge
and some idea of how to acquire and use it, it will have done
its work.
Richard Livingstone

A Book of Quotations
N
Nerds
Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
Bill Gates

P
Parents
I have been taking my sons and daughter to work with me for
well over 10 years. The greatest parts of the day have been
having your children interact with coworkers, for them to see
you in a diferent environment, and to understand how kind
and patient so many people are in a working environment. It
helps them form opinions on the type of work they are
interested in. With one son entering college, I can see that
he is leaning towards the types of interactions he has had
over the years that most stimulated him (both social and
technological). I think this is an experience that every
Father, Mother, Son, and Daughter should experience.
Alan Klayman
Founder of the MyIncomeStrategy.com® program

With more and more mothers working outside the home, we

A Book of Quotations
are fnding that the amount of quality time they have to
spend with their children is less and less. ‘Take Our
Daughters and Sons to Work Day’ is a vital initiative because
it promotes parent-child bonding on yet another level. By
afording our children the opportunity to experience our
careers, we are providing them with an immediate
educational experience, as well as the possibility of fostering
long-term goals and motivation. It was while experiencing
my capable, educated mother's struggle as a secretary to
gain respect in a male-dominated corporate environment
that I realized I wanted to learn about the psychology behind
the choices men and women make in terms of their courses
of study after high school. It was after a ‘Take Your Daughter
to Work Day’ that I realized I had to become a school
psychologist.
Nadine O'Reilly, M.A., certifed school psychologist

Patriot's Duty: School Reform

I wonder if 200 years ahead,
if we will ride or if we'll stay in bed.
If faith and freedom within die
and then we hear that midnight cry
and the hoofbeats across the moonlit sky
Will we ride with Paul Revere?
Up With People, choir

Passion
When the child fnds his passion, we teach to that passion.
We can fnd internships for high school students: Kids say, “I
love this internship!”
Dennis Littky

A Book of Quotations
Persistence
Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or
small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of
honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to
the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.
Sir Winston Churchill, Speech, 1941, Harrow School

Positive Thinking
Whatsoever things are true,
Whatsoever things are honest,
Whatsoever things are just,
Whatsoever things are pure,
Whatsoever things are lovely,
Whatsoever things are of good report,
Think on these things.
Philippians 4:8

Q
The importance of Quotations
See the last quote of this book

The Power of Quotations

Oprah says she's lived her life by quotations and sayings.
oprah.com

To celebrate her magazine's 10th anniversary, the editors

compiled a collection of insightful quotes drawn from the
magazine's frst decade.
oprah.com/omagazine/Os-Words-That-Matter-
Inspirational-Quotes

A Book of Quotations
R
Reading
Children should learn that reading is pleasure, not just
something that teachers make you do in school.
Beverly Cleary

Reform
Any attempt to reform the university without attending to the
system of which it is an integral part is like trying to do
urban renewal in New York City from the twelfth story up.
Ivan Illich

Comment: this is precisely the point I make in my frst blog

entry. My proposal for a K-12 innovation Zone will indeed
provide the foundation of reform in university studies.

Relationships
What students lack in school is an intellectual relationship or
conversation with the teacher.
William Glasser

Relevance
I was a small boy and my father used to read to me from an
encyclopedia. One day we read about dinosaurs and the
book said that the dinosaur was twenty-fve feet high with a
head six feet across. "Let's see what that means. That would

A Book of Quotations
mean that if he stood in our front yard, he wold be high
enough to put his head through the third-story window but
not quite because his head would be a little bit too wide."
Richard Feynman

Responsibility for Learning

“Measures of understanding” may seem demanding,
particularly in contract to current, often superfcial, eforts to
measure what students know and are able to do. And,
indeed, recourse to performing one’s understanding is likely
to stress students, teachers, and parents, who have grown
accustomed to traditional ways of doing (or NOT doing)
things. Nonetheless, a performance approach to
understanding is justifed. Instead of mastering content, one
thinks about the reason why a particular content is being
taught and how best to display one’s comprehension of this
content in a publicly accessible way. When students realize
they will have to apply knowledge and demonstrate insights
in a public form, they assume a more active stance to the
material, seeking to exercise their “performance muscles”
whenever possible.
Howard Gardner, Intelligence Reframed

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S
School
Going to school does not make a person educated, any more
than going to a garage makes a person a car.
Anonymous

School Leavers / Drop Outs

I left Scotland when I was 16 because I had no qualifcations
for anything but to join the Navy, having left school at 13.
Sean Connery

And then before going back for my sophomore year, I

decided to change my major to arts and sciences, and my
dad cut a deal with me: He said if I'd quit school he'd pay my
rent for the next three years, as if I were in school.
Sarah Silverman , comedienne

Richard Branson

Bill Gates

Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement Speech, 2005

A Book of Quotations
Small Schools
he frst R is Rigor – making sure all students are given a
challenging curriculum that prepares them for college or
work. The second R is Relevance – making sure kids have
courses and projects that clearly relate to their lives and their
goals. The third R is Relationships – making sure kids have
a number of adults who know them, look out for them, and
push them to achieve. The three Rs are almost always easier
to promote in smaller schools. ... Students in smaller
schools are more motivated, have higher attendance rates,
feel safer, and graduate and attend college in higher
numbers.”
Bill Gates, Speech to the National High School Summit,
February 2005

Sports
In high school, in sport, I had a coach who told me I was
much better than I thought I was, and would make me do
more in a positive sense. He was the frst person who taught
me not to be afraid of failure.
Mike Krzyzewski

Stagnation
Together we have come to realize that for most men, the
right to learn is curtailed buy the obligation to attend school.

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Ivan Illich

Starting a School

The Importance of Sports

Growing up, if I hadn't had sports, I don't know where I'd be.
God only knows what street corners I'd have been standing
on and God only knows what I'd have been doing, but
instead I played hockey and went to school and stayed out of
trouble.
Bobby Orr

Success
Running a school where the students all succeed, even if
some students have to help others to make the grade, is
good preparation for democracy.
William Glasser

Surrender
We shall not fag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall
fght in France, we shall fght on the seas and oceans, we
shall fght with growing confdence and growing strength in
the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be.
We shall fght on the beaches, we shall fght on the landing
grounds, we shall fght in the felds and in the streets, we
shall fght in the hills; we shall never surrender,
Winston Churchill, to the House of Commons of the British
Parliament on 4 June 1940.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_shall_fght_on_the_beaches

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Comment: Parents and teachers ought to feel the same
importance as people did when they heard or read these
words. The time is now. We cannot surrender to the forces
of inertia. Churchill's words will inspire parents to band
together and say, “We will fght for students in PTO
meetings, in one-on-one interactions with teachers and
administrators, we will organize parents and inspire them
with words” – including the abridged digital version of this
book of quotations, available on scribd.com, and the audio
book on YouTube.

T
Teachers
Unfortunately, to most people, teaching is the giving of
knowledge. What are you going to tell the students? What is
your expertise? But teaching is really about bringing out
what's already inside people.
Dennis Littky

Technology
What you are seeing is the state school tuitions go up.
California being a strong case of that, but that's broadly
across the United States with the exception of four or fve
states. If you go way back into the '60s and '70s, most places
had truly free [college education].It just puts pressure on for
innovation. Thank goodness there is a way to get innovation,
hopefully in the personnel system, but also in [online

A Book of Quotations
education].
If you take K-12, online can have some impact there. There's
people like Rocketship, a charter that is trying to mix in
online so they can have more efcient teaching. The role of
online in K-12, I hope we can prove that out, but there it's
the teacher efectiveness that is probably the biggest thing.
If you move up to college level, the online thing can be
absolutely phenomenal because students are more mature,
motivated, involved in things. Because that piece can be done
without any political complexity, I'm a little more sure that
we'll drive a lot of efciency in what college learning morphs
into than K-12.
Bill Gates, Interview on Cnet.com

Tests
Multiple Intelligences is most usefully invoked in the service
of two educational goals. The frst is to help students
achieve certain valued adult roles or end-states. If one
wants everyone to be able to engage in artistic activities, it
makes sense to develop linguistic intelligence for the poet,
spatial intelligence for the graphic artist and sculptor,
movement intelligence for the dancer and musical
intelligence for the composer. If we want everyone to be
civil, then it is important to develop the personal
intelligences.

The second goal is to help students master certain curricular

materials. Students might be encouraged to take a course in
biology so as to better understand the development of the
living world. If individuals indeed have diferent kinds of
minds, with varied strengths, interests and strategies, then it
is worth considering whether pivotal curricular materials like
biology could be taught AND ASSESSED in a variety of ways.

A Book of Quotations
Howard Gardner, Intelligence Reframed, p. 167 (emphasis
added).

Time
There are only two places in the world where time takes
precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.
William Glasser

Time is Irreversible
Think ahead. Follow your gut.
Gabriel Serrao Mazzei

Time Must Be A Variable For Student Success

Nowhere in my readings have I found encouragement and
funds to reward systems that are trying to build an
educational environment based on students’ mastery and
making time a variable. As long as time is fxed, then student
progress is what is variable within the fxed time frame.
Thus, 30% of the student population is punished through
failures.

If we moved in core areas - mainly English and Math - to

Computer Based Learning ("CBL" or Computer Assisted
Instruction “CAI”), the student becomes the class and each
student is given time to master the materials. Further, what
is learned becomes a tool for future learning. In science and
social studies, projects that are meaningful to students can
be agreed and assigned. Small groups then may use
technology for research purposes as well as to make
powerpoint presentations to fellow students. This
transformation cannot be done without the community,
without curriculum design and without teachers who are

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trained to utilize the environment correctly.

Student management also is important so that the teacher,

the student and the parent see the progress of each student.
This type of system provides accessibility to all partners,
including the principal and state, as well as a vehicle to help
determine the efectiveness of the learning environment in
the classroom.

If you know of locations where the above model is being

used, please let me know. Overall, appreciate your thoughts
on transforming our educational system to treat each student
as the class.
A. Fischler

Traditional Views of Education

The ultimate goal of the educational system is to shift to the
individual the burden of pursing his own education. This will
not be a widely shared pursuit until we get over our odd
conviction that education is what goes on in school buildings
and nowhere else.
John W. Gardner

We don't need no education

We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.
Pink Floyd (lyrics, The Wall)

Trust

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Trust. Truth. No Put-downs.
Active Listening. Personal Best.
Seen at New City School in St. Louis, Mo.

COMMENT: The words in St. Louis, particularly “trust” are

starkly diferent form the words used by the rock group Pink
Floyd in their classic album “The Dark Side of the Moon.”
How many millions of teenagers have nodded fercely to this
melody?

U
Understanding, Performances of
When it comes to probing a student’s understanding of
evolution, the shrewd pedagogue looks beyond the mastery
of dictionary defnitions or the recitation of textbook
examples. A student demonstrates or “performs” his
understanding when he can examine a range of species
found in diferent ecological niches and speculate about the
reasons for their particular ensemble of traits. A student
performs her understanding of the Holocaust when she can
compare events in a Nazi concentration camp to such
contemporary genocidal events as those in Bosnia, Kosovo or
Rwanda in the 1990s.
Howard Gardner, Intelligence Reframed

COMMENT: While many educational administrators can

recite Gardner's work describing various types of
intelligence, few know of his stance on how the intelligences
might be evaluated. Gardner acknowledges that testing
might indeed be more expensive if portfolios and other

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alternatives to the written test are used (see “Testing”).

W
Warehouses

World View
Is the rich world aware of how four billion of the six billion
live? If we were aware, we would want to help out, we'd want
to get involved.
Bill Gates

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Z

End note

What is my vision and strategy for educational change?

I believe that we in education must make the investment to
do the same for our clients, i.e., each student. What
investment is needed?

There are three modes of instruction: 1) self-paced or CAI, 2)

project or problem-solving and 3) discussion. Self-paced or
CAI requires that each student have access to a computer
and modem and access to the curriculum on a server on a
24/7 basis. Projects and problems should be relevant to
students so they can relate to the given subject area.

For English and Math, we should implement CAI in the 1st

grade (and continue thereafter). The reason English and Math
are chosen is that these are the two cultural imperative
languages. If you know these two languages and are
motivated as a self-learner, you can teach yourself almost
anything you want to learn. And, one of the goals of
education is to create self-learners.

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For all other subjects, the teacher can pose a project or
problem that is relevant to the student. Once the problem is
defned, the class can be broken down into groups of 4-5
students in order to research the solution to the problem. If
complex, each of the groups may study an aspect of the
problem. With these subjects, the student uses the computer
as a research tool (after having learned to read). Students are
taught to use search engines such as Google or Yahoo as
well as the intranet made available by teachers gathering
information relevant for the students.

Students working in a group learn cooperation, shared

responsibility and communication (face-to-face as well as e-
mail). Having produced a written solution to the problem
utilizing the computer (power point) as a tool, they can then
present to the class for discussion. They can also use email
or a written report to other students as well as the teacher.

Arbitrary learning within fxed time periods would be

eliminated, i.e., no 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. grades. Instead,
students would be grouped chronologically with materials
appropriate to their learning level and style using the CAI
approach for English and Math, and the
project/problem/discussion modes for other subjects. The
projects given to the students match the level of English and
Math competencies and are related to the students (their
interests and their lives). For example, in 3rd grade, how
would you study the amount of water that a plant needs to
grow? I would utilize the students’ Math knowledge (learned
through CAI) for science learning. Likewise, rather than
studying history through memorization and chronology, it
can be studied through problems based on the immediate
environment for younger children and more abstract
concepts in later grades.

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What do we need to make this happen?

In order for this to be implemented, what do we need?

1) We need the people on board – parents, teachers,

community leaders, etc.
2) We need the hardware – computers with modems and
Internet access for each student.
3) We need the management system (many existing solutions
can be adapted).
4) We need the curriculum – Computer Assisted Instructions
(CAI) for Math and English and creative, relevant problems
and projects for other subjects.
5) We need teacher training.

In order to begin to implement change, we need all of these

things in place. In 2007, I would like to see a group of
elementary and middle schools, and the high school into
which they feed (a demonstration ‘zone’) of some size agree
to adopt a vision where time is a variable and mastery what
is expected from each student. A computer company can be
found to donate (or the zone can buy) a laptop with a modem
for each student. The zone needs to build an integrated
management system in order to be responsive to what
students do and how they learn. Part of the management
system is administrative, part is the CAI component, and
lastly, the management system needs to record and refect
the student’s learnings in non-CAI instruction (‘student
portfolios’). The CAI component must be self-correcting and
use artifcial intelligence so that the component improves as
more students utilize the program for English and Math.
Teacher training is critical and must be done during the
summer prior to implementation.
To learn more, go to TheStudentIsTheClass.com

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A. Fischler

Background
Dr. Fischler is President Emeritus and University Professor at Nova
Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He served as
President of Nova University from July 1970 to July 1992. Prior to
coming to Nova in 1966, Dr. Fischler was Professor of Education at
the University of California, Berkeley. He began his career in education
as a science teacher and earned his Ed.D. degree at Columbia
University. Subsequently, he became Assistant Professor at the
Graduate School of Education, Harvard University. After his
retirement as President, he served on the Broward County School
Board from 1994 to 1998. Dr. Fischler has been a consultant to the
Ford Foundation, to various State Departments of Education, and to
school districts in a number of states. He has authored many articles
and publications dealing with science education and advanced
teaching methods. He is a fellow of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science and a member of numerous other
educational and scientifc organizations. His blog
TheStudentIsTheClass.com proposes a zone of innovation that will
introduce computer-based instruction to reform existing schools.

QBE Schools have adopted Dr. Fischler's CAI “core” (English and
mathematics). It is the aim of the school's administrators to nurture
Dr. Fischler's vision (above), which appeared as the frst entry in his
blog in 2006.

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Schools That Inspire Us

High Tech High, San Diego, California: Housed in a renovated

warehouse on a sprawling former Navy training base. Half of the
building is a vast open space under thirty-fve-foot-high, sky-lit
ceilings. The space is divided with waist-high walls into four
work stations suites, each with clusters of desks and Internet-
linked computers for twenty-eight students. Because of the low
partitions, one can stand just about anywhere and watch the
goings-on throughout the Great Room (from a description in Tom
Toch's book, High Schools on a Human Scale, page 64).

hightechhigh.org, youtube.com/hthvideo

Met Center, Providence, Rhode Island: Bill Gates summed up the

school's focus on relationships like this: Students need adults who
know them, look out for them and push them to succeed. Visitors
pay a fee of $200 to tour the school.

Metcenter.org, youtube.com/bplearning

Latin Rindge School, Cambridge: Lois Hetland, Ed.D., Project

Zero, recommends this school for its use of portfolios. Staf
eagerly shows visitors how rubrics guide students toward taking
responsibility for their learning.

http://www.cps.ci.cambridge.ma.us/crls/

Aiglon College, Villars, Switzerland: The curriculum developed

between 1949 and 1975 involves progressively rigorous and
planned hardships, delayed gratifcation and an intolerance of
bullying. Its founder wrote, “We believe that the goal of education

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is, or should be, the development of the spiritual man, that is of
that part of each one of us which, with development and training,
is capable of a vision or direct apprehension of the purpose of life,
of the true nature of ourselves, of the world in which we live and
of such other worlds or states of being as may exist besides.”
johncorlette.com

New City School, St. Louis, Missouri: One of the leading schools
built around Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences theory.
Principal Tom Hoerr is a frequent writer in the ASCD magazine
Educational Leadership. (ASCD published Dennis Littky;'s book,
The Big Picture.) The school's staf have produced remarkable
workbooks to help teachers and administrators introduce
portfolios to track progress made in developing a student's various
abilities. Slogan: Joyful learning.
NewCitySchool.org

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About the Editors of this book
Will Sutherland was trained as a teacher at St Luke’s College Exeter,
majoring in Physical Education, Maths and Education. Having played
rugby at county level he played for the College during his first 2 years. He
had sailed since he was 6, and annually competed with his Father in the
Enterprise UK National championships. Being keen to get involved in
outdoor adventure sports he spent the last year at college, white water
canoeing, canoe surfing, climbing, diving and sailing bigger boats.
It was whilst learning to ice climb on Ben Nevis that he realized he had to
learn to ski in order to access ice climbs in the Alps. He meet JC and
hence ended up in Switzerland at Aiglon for one year to learn to ski whilst
teaching maths and being responsible for Junior Expeditions. He
eventually stayed 17 years, spending 6 years as Housemaster in
Belevedere, and 10 in Alpina.

Not sure what to do when he returned to the UK in 1989, he decided

there was no way he would be able to cope with the laissez-faire methods
of teaching that were the vogue in the UK at the time.

For a short while he worked training young executive in situational

leadership, team building, and problem solving, using a 40 foot sailing
boat as a leveling environment.

During this time he achieved RYA Yachtmaster Instructor (Ocean) status

with a commercial ticket.

He then was retained by Cardiff Bay Development Agency as their waters

use expert and wrote the strategy that is being implemented today to
regenerate the economy in and around Cardiff. He has continued this
work, setting up his own business and working within a network of
consultants on marine tourism and regeneration projects throughout
Europe.

Will has also been working as a personal Mentor to business leaders and
has kept his eye on educational developments whilst mentoring 6th form
students during their ‘A’Levels and on through college, usually working
very closely with the student, parents and college together.

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He has recently opened a Sea School in Dartmouth, Devon, UK, and is
also working on the development of new techniques for the use of IT in
teaching and learning. Much of this work will be used in this “Aiglon
Alumni Satellite Project.”

Steve McCrea, an alumnus of Aiglon, is a teacher in Fort Lauderdale,

Fla., and an advocate of using video in the classroom. His channel
(youtube.com/visualandactive) documents ways that teachers
can bring technology into the integrated lesson plan. He led a
team of teachers that pulled together the blended curriculum for
QBE Schools, harnessing the three cultures of Aiglon College
(Villars), the Met Center (Providence, R.I.) and Maverick Schools
(Miami, Fla.): character development (planned hardships, delayed
gratifcation), relationships (surrounding kids with adults who
know them, look out for them and push them to achieve), and
computer-based instruction (based on the work of Dr. Abraham
Fischler). The QBE curriculum allocates resources for academics,
physical development, emotional and social intelligences, mental
abilities and spiritual aspects of students.

A Book of Quotations
References
Ferriter, William M. “Preparing to Teach Digitally,”
Educational Leadership, May 2010, pages 88-89

thinkexist.com/quotations/schools/

Gates Interview, Cnet, http://news.cnet.com/8301-

13860_3-20003165-56.html

oprah.com/omagazine/Os-Words-That-Matter-
Inspirational-Quotes

Feynman, Richard, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

Alan Klayman (MyIncomeStrategy.com®),

takeourdaughtersandsonstowork.presskit247.com/content/c
ontent-article.asp?ArticleID=3475

Toch, Tom, High Schools on a Human Scale (2003). tom

vander Ark, foreword.

A Book of Quotations
A Book of Quotations
FINAL QUOTE

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of

quotations. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is an admirable
work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved
upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make
you anxious to read the authors and look for more.

Sir Winston Churchill, Roving Commission: My Early Life,

1930, Chapter 9

A Book of Quotations