The question is not, Does or doesn't public schooling create a public? The question is, What kind of public does it create? A conglomerate of self-indulgent consumers? Angry, soulless, directionless masses? Indifferent, confused citizens? Or a public imbued with confidence, a sense of purpose, a respect for learning, and tolerance? The answer to this question has nothing whatever to do with computers, with testing, with teacher accountability, with class size, and with the other details of managing schools. The right answer depends on two things and two things alone: the existence of shared narratives and the capacity of such narratives to provide an inspired reason for schooling. Neil Postman
Some Similar Quotes
  1. I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. <span style="margin:15px;... - Neil Gaiman

  2. Well my music was different in high school; I was singing about love–you know, things I don't care about anymore. - Lady Gaga

  3. I'm the girl nobody knows until she commits suicide. Then suddenly everyone had a class with her. - Tom Leveen

  4. The difference between school and life? In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson. - Tom Bodett

  5. Once you leave out all the bullshit they teach you in school, life gets really simple. - George Carlin

More Quotes By Neil Postman
  1. The opposite of a correct statement is an incorrect statement. The opposite of a profound truth is another profound truth (Niels Bohr)." By this, he means that we require a larger reading of the human past, of our relations with each other, the universe and...

  2. Educators may bring upon themselves unnecessary travail by taking a tactless and unjustifiable position about the relation between scientific and religious narratives. We see this, of course, in the conflict concerning creation science. Some educators representing, as they think, the conscience of science act much...

  3. The scientific method, " Thomas Henry Huxley once wrote, "is nothing but the normal working of the human mind." That is to say, when the mind is working; that is to say further, when it is engaged in corrrecting its mistakes. Taking this point of...

  4. Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and commercials.

  5. In saying no one knew about the ideas implicit in the telegraph, I am not quite accurate. Thoreau knew. Or so one may surmise. It is alleged that upon being told that through the telegraph a man in Maine could instantly send a message to...

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