Katharine Birbalsingh > Quotes

“But our reason must get to work on knowledge, and our schools must form young people who, even if their answers differ, share a knowledge of the questions our community has put to itself over generations.”
― Katharine Birbalsingh, Michaela: The Power of Culture

“All of which underlines a point that is worth restating: like energy, we cannot remove authority; we can only move it elsewhere. The attempts by Rousseau and his ideological successors to remove or lessen the influence of parents and teachers in the hope that children would grow up more ‘authentically’ was, at best, desperately naïve. It simply gave way to other new and untested authorities, the influence of which is only now starting to come in to view.”
― Katharine Birbalsingh, Michaela: The Power of Culture

“Our actions become our habits, our habits become our character, our character is who we are.”
― Katharine Birbalsingh, Michaela: The Power of Culture

“While standing in front of a classroom may not seem much like battling for the future of a civilisation, the truth is that a battle is indeed underway, and what happens in our classrooms has a much greater significance than we may immediately recognise. For, if the culture of our schools affects the character of our pupils, and the character of our pupils then eventually shapes the culture of our society, undoubtedly what we teach our pupils does make a genuine difference to the world around us.”
― Katharine Birbalsingh, Michaela: The Power of Culture

“It’s not necessarily unusual to find a company of people caught up together because of a common passion.”
― Katharine Birbalsingh, Michaela: The Power of Culture