Tony Little > Quotes

“Our society’s almost doctrinal emphasis upon deductive reasoning, convergent thinking and selective retention perversely excludes divergent thinking, approximation and, importantly, guessing. If we are truly to understand the adolescent mind and develop effective ways to minimize the effects of risk-taking behaviour, we really need to understand these processes and engage with them. There is no logic involved with drug-taking and gambling. Adults can learn, too; understanding these mechanisms will also allow us to encourage creativity and value the spontaneity so characteristic of the adolescent mind.”
― Tony Little, An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Education

“So let’s scrap the GCSE altogether: what purpose does it serve? The nation requires a snapshot of performance in key skills at the point of the legal school-leaving age, so let us have a basic matriculation requirement in English, Maths, Science and maybe a modern language: no more than this.”
― Tony Little, An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Education

“Reflecting on personal and communal experience and analysing the purpose of education are essential ways for students to come to a better understanding of themselves and their connection to society.

In Britain, sadly, there is no obligation for schools to engage their students in this process. Good schools do so intuitively.”
― Tony Little, Cómo educar con inteligencia

“As a parent like any other, I know that a good education is the greatest gift we give our children”
― Tony Little, An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Education

“If the prescribed literary text is safe and 'accessible' (sometimes a euphemism for 'undemanding'), or if the history is only a routine diet of Nazism with a splash of Tudors, or if a subject is broken into disparate segments, we are not measuring the capacity of our young people to see to the hoizon.”
― Tony Little