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“I've noticed a fascinating phenomenon in my thirty years of teaching: schools and schooling are increasingly irrelevant to the great enterprises of the planet. No one believes anymore that scientists are trained in science classes or politicians in civics classes or poets in English classes. The truth is that schools don't really teach anything except how to obey orders. This is a great mystery to me because thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers and aides and administrators, but the abstract logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions. Although teachers to care and do work very, very hard, the institution is psychopathic -- it has no conscience. It rings a bell and the young man in the middle of writing a poem must close his notebook and move to a different cell where he must memorize that humans and monkeys derive from a common ancestor.”
― Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
― Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
“When you love you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve.”
― A Farewell to Arms
― A Farewell to Arms
“The most solid advice for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.”
― The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze and Other Stories
― The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze and Other Stories
Sylvia’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Sylvia’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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