"When I started Galileo I thought what I was doing was providing access to academic areas like science, and engineering, and visual arts. But it turned out that what we were really doing was creating an environment. An environment that collectively, between curriculum design, classroom ritual, and overall community design, creates a special space that allows people's best selves to emerge. And ideally that's what schools could do too. It's harder, I know, but that's what I would love to see happen in schools."
Read More"Our vision of education is enabling students to find their passion and purpose while they’re in school... To dream and to build. Those two things are what I want school to give students the opportunity to do... Ultimately, if a school can get someone ready to live an extraordinary, not an ordinary life, it has been successful."
Read More"I think schools should exist to enable and empower people to grow into the best version of themselves and into good citizens... I hope we give people a sense of why participating in our democracy is important and build some motivation to participate. And I hope we also learn to be supportive human beings to one another."
Read More"I think that if we step back and ask ourselves what we would want of our society and what we want of our institutions, I think we would have no hesitation in saying that the aim of them should be to enable us to live well. . . So, schools have to be focused on enabling each child in the school’s care to make progress towards living a good life."
Read MoreSome people would blame the teachers, some people would blame poverty, some would blame our values as a country, some people would blame unions, some would blame the “corporate reformers,” or charter schools, etc. My main feeling is that everyone’s right in some respects, but all of our views are also incomplete. In our field, we’ve had so much focus on ‘why not’ that I think we’re better off working on how we all can think differently about what’s possible for the future.
Read MoreI would like an education system in which we would have space for kids to develop at their own pace without being labeled, where kids could pursue and explore various different things, where they weren’t bound to desks and could be doing all kinds of other things, where they could have a democratic sense of the world around them - with a voice and a stake.
Read MoreThat’s the hardest part of it all: It’s not mean people making these decisions to hurt kids, it’s good people, decent people, people who genuinely believe themselves to be doing the right thing who are all kinds of caught in the system where they’re having to mediate and turn the same crank because of the consequences. ... That’s where the struggle is. It’s not between good people and bad people, it’s between all of us as just people trying to do the best we can and having very, very different opinions about what that looks like.
Read MoreI think all parents want their kids to be happy. But sometimes that means they think their child will only be happy if they go to an Ivy League or highly selective college and have every opportunity they either did or didn’t have. Parents always want what’s best for their kid but we have trouble seeing that sometimes those heavy-handed goals towards what’s “best” have negative mental and emotional ramifications for the kids.
Read More"That's the major pivot, is that schools become much more about relationship and much more about listening to, protecting, and wrapping our arms around children. And then those are the outcomes we chase, those are the things we measure. The depth and quality of relationships amongst the children, that they feel cared about, loved and protected."
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