January

"It is the nature of the child to be dependent, and it is the nature of dependence to be outgrown. Begrudging dependency because it is not independence is like begrudging winter because it is not yet spring. Dependency blossoms into independence in its own time."

Peggy O'Mara,
Editor, Mothering Magazine

February

"Modern education is competitive, nationalistic and separative. It has trained the child to regard material values as of major importance, to believe that his nation is also of major importance and superior to other nations and peoples. The general level of world information is high but usually biased, influenced by national prejudices, serving to make us citizens of our nation but not of the world."

Albert Einstein

March/April

"The greatest respect is owed to a child."

Juvenal
1st - 2nd century C.E.

May

"I would like to know why it is that we have disregarded all children's significantly spontaneous and comprehensive curiosity... Nothing seems to be more prominent about human life than its wanting to understand all and put everything together."

R. Buckminster Fuller

June

"Nature is already as good as it can be. It cannot be improved upon. He who tries to redesign it, spoils it. He who tries to redirect it, misleads it."

Lao Tsu,
Tao Te Ching

July

"Babies need tenderness. They do not grow well without it. It is the stuff that makes us human."

James Kimmel

August

"Teach your scholar to observe the phenomena of nature; you will soon rouse his curiosity, but if you would have it grow, do not be in too great a hurry to satisfy this curiosity. Put the problems before him and let him solve them himself. Let him know nothing because you have told him, but because he has learnt it for himself. Let him not be taught science, let him discover it. If ever you substitute authority for reason he will cease to reason; he will be a mere plaything of other people's thoughts."

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

September

"The only time my education was interrupted was when I was in school."

George Bernard Shaw

October

"We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today."

Stacia Tauscher

November

"The absence of fear is the finest thing that can happen to a child."

A.S. Neill,
Summerhill School: A New View of Childhood

December

"A child whose life is full of the threat and fear of punishment is locked into babyhood. There is no way for him to grow up, to learn to take responsibility for his life and acts. Most important of all, we should not assume that having to yield to the threat of our superior force is good for the child's character. It is never good for anyone's character."

- John Holt,
Freedom and Beyond

More Quotes of the Month