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Home > Fall Forum > 1998
Theodore R. Sizer's Summarized Remarks
1998 Fall Forum
"Amy's argument against 'sameness' is gutsy, important."
"The new national interest in education presents us a new situation; we can
fear it and stand aloof or we can affect it by engaging. We must find out how
best to engage."
"A few closing words about CES: our Fall Forums are a conversation, a swap
shop and a reaffirmation of the ideas and ideals that we share."
"All of us, young and old, learn best when we tackle questions which are important
to us. The students themselves must do the work, energetic work which arises from
engaging questions."
"The measure of our students' learning must be the understanding of the unfamiliar.
Our students must learn to make principled use of the unforeseen. No two schools,
no two teachers, no two schools, no two communities are ever precisely alike or
even alike from one year to the next. Therefore we teachers need to know each
of our students well and to work under conditions that make this knowing an easy
reality. Likewise the state must "know" each of us, schools and communities,
well and treat us individually, respecting the uniqueness of each of us."
"What makes us quintessentially human is our intellect. Humans are uniquely
reflective animals. Schools are fundamentally about the intellect, about cajoling
each young person into the habit of using his or her mind well. Teaching to this
end is a demanding task, but we must persist at it. The young person who cannot
think resourcefully for herself or himself, who is not in the habit of being informed
and respectfully skeptical, is a crippled person, easy prey for those who would
bend their minds for unworthy purposes."
"All this should remind us always that our work is, at heart, deeply moral
work; that a disciplined mind is the engine of freedom; that it is our honorable
and honored task to encourage that discipline which draws each of our students
into thoughtful freedom."
"Such simple, but sturdy commitments embody the core of the Coalition of Essential
Schools."
Page last updated: May 15, 2002
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