On being a parent : on being a child—3

Philosophers are adults who persist in asking childish questions.

Isaiah Berlin . 1909-1997 . British political philosopher and historian of ideas

No real teacher can doubt that his task is to assist his pupil to fulfill human nature against all the deforming forces of convention and prejudice.

Allan Bloom . 1930-1992 . American philosopher, essayist and academic . The closing of the American mind

We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born.

Meister Eckhart . c1260-1328 . German philosopher, mystic and theologian

A bad beginning makes a bad ending.

Euripides . c480-406 BCE . Greek playwright . Aeolus

Tell your son to stop trying to fill your head with science—for to fill your heart with love is enough.

Richard Feynman . 1918-1988 . American theoretical physicist . note to Marcus Chown’s  mother, after Chown asked Feynman to write her a birthday note, hoping it would increase her interest in science.

The little world of childhood with its familiar surroundings is a model of the greater world. 

Carl Jung . 1875-1961 . Swiss psychotherapist and psychiatrist . The theory of psychoanalysis

Conventional “requirements”…  are systems of prescriptions and proscriptions intended solely to limit the physical and intellectual movements of students—to “keep them in line, in sequence, in order” etc.  They shift focus of attention from the learner to the “course”.  …  The “requirements,” indeed, force the teacher—and administrator—into the role of an authoritarian functionary whose primary task becomes that of enforcing the requirements rather than helping the learner to learn.  The whole authority of the system is contingent upon the “requirements”.

Neil Postman . 1931-2003 . American educator, media theorist and cultural critic . Teaching as a subversive activity

As a child I assumed that when I reached adulthood, I would have grown-up thoughts.

David Sedaris . 1956-  . American essayist and radio contributor . Let’s explore diabetes with owls

Children are tough, though we tend to think of them as fragile.  They have to be tough.  Childhood is not easy.  We sentimentalize children, but they know what’s real and what’s not.  They understand metaphor and symbol.  If children are different from us, they are more spontaneous.  Grown-up lives have become overlaid with dross.

Maurice Sendak . 1928-2012 . American writer and illustrator of children’s literature . quoted in the New York times

Please don’t go.  We’ll eat you up.  We love you so. 

Maurice Sendak . Where the wild things are

Every fool believes what his teachers tell him, and calls his credulity science or morality as confidently as his father called it divine revelation.

George Bernard Shaw . 1856-1950 . Irish playwright . Maxims for revolutionists

Molesworth:  Grandmothers are all very strikt and they all sa the same thing as they smile swetely over their gin and orange.  “It is a grandmother’s privilege to spoil her grandchildren GET OFF THAT SOFA NIGEL YOU WILL BRAKE IT”.

Geoffrey Willans . 1911-1958 . English author and journalist . How to Be Topp

The good-enough mother… starts off with an almost complete adaptation to her infant’s needs, and as time proceeds she adapts less and less completely, gradually, according to the infant’s growing ability to deal with her failure…

DW Winnicott . 1896-1971 . English paediatric psychiatrist . Transitional objects and transitional phenomena

When the pupil is ready, a teacher appears.

Zen saying

Related material:
>  Quotations:  On being a parent : on being a child
>  Quotations:  On being a parent : on being a child—2

selection copyright © 2016 Jeremy Marchant . uploaded 22 march 2016