Quotes

Friedrich Froebel

My educational method offers to its pupils from the beginning the opportunity to collect their own experiences from things themselves, to look with their own eyes and learn by their own experiments to know things and the relations of things to each other, and also the real life of the world of humanity; this last however, within the limits necessary for morality and not divested of the nimbus of the beautiful and the ideal.

In such a manner a greater inward as well as outward independence will be gained, which teaches one how to stand on one’s own feet . . . The too much and too early knowledge with which youth is crammed prevents men from reaching a true and real independence, which is only the fruit of the vigorous efforts of one’s own powers, especially by acting and doing.

Friedrich Froebel quoted by W H G Armytage in 1952

via Friedrich Froebel invented Kindergarten.

Happy birthday, Web | Harvard Gazette

BRADNER:  the change brought about in the last half-dozen years by the smartphone is breathtaking.

In much of the world, the smartphone is the Internet. It’s the only Internet they’ve got. That kind of empowerment of billions of people — particularly in parts of the world that do not have the infrastructure to support regular Internet — is going to be really mind-bending.

In general education, things like edX and the MOOCs [Massive Open Online Courses] have the potential to be very, very impactful. The fact that some kid in rural India can take a physics course is breathtaking.The innovation you have on these mobile platforms, people building apps — Apple’s up to a half-million apps and Android is not far behind — is very empowering.

via Happy birthday, Web | Harvard Gazette.

Education that serves the community

I have very fond memories of my schooling, including my five years at a high school. I think my schooling served me well. It supported my parents’ conviction that education was the pathway to a productive life and that girls needed and deserved a career. It taught me to think for myself, to analyse, organise, hypothesise, challenge, martial and test arguments. It gave me a peer group with whom I could share, trial and extend these skills as well as teachers who were role models and experts in their subject fields.  My subsequent courses at Sydney University and the University of South Australia built on what I learned at school, but it was the intellectual skills and the mental discipline I acquired at high school that formed the solid foundation.

via Education that serves the community | J&J Dellit.

Julia Gillard, Former Prime Minister of Australia, Joins Brookings Institution

“I am honored and delighted to accept the invitation to become affiliated with global education programs at the Center for Universal Education at Brookings,” said Gillard. “I very much look forward to making a contribution to the effectiveness and reach of these important initiatives, and advancing the policy objectives and outcomes we share.”

 

Julia Gillard, Former Prime Minister of Australia, Joins Brookings | Brookings Institution.