A Quote by Ivan Illich

School prepares for the alienating institutionalization of life by teaching the need to be taught.

Ivan Illich

Quote Topics

Life Need School Taught Teaching

Quote Author

Ivan Illich
American - Sociologist
September 4, 1926 - December 2, 2002

School prepares for the alienating institutionalization of life by teaching the need to be taught. Once this lesson is learned, people lose their incentive to grow in independence; they no longer find relatedness attractive, and close themselves off to the surprises which life offers when it is not predetermined by institutional definition.

Ivan Illich

Dartmouth is a small school with high-caliber teaching. Our classes were all taught by professors, not teaching assistants. I felt like that was a school where I could make a big splash. The opportunities would be grander and more robust for me there than at a school with 40,000 students.

Aisha Tyler

I haven't taught creative writing all that much (my CW teaching consists of a few summer workshops for elementary school children and an eight-week class for older adults), and I don't really know what my teaching style is yet.

Mary J. Miller

Have you taught a Sunday School class and felt when you finished that you had really taught someone some principle of the gospel that had really helped him or given him a brighter look on life? Remember the feeling of peace and joy that followed? Have you ever taught someone the gospel and received that feeling of joy because he had accepted what you had been teaching? The thrill of missionary work!

Eldred G. Smith

I'm starting a virtual school for the world, teaching things the way I wanted to be taught.

Sal Khan

I love teaching creative writing, and I think I'm good at it, but in a different life, I could have been teaching elementary school.

Alexi Zentner

It was never factually true that young people learn to read or do arithmetic primarily by being taught these things. These things are learned, but not really taught at all. Over-teaching interferes with learning, although the few who survive it may well come to imagine it was by an act of teaching.

John Taylor Gatto

My parents, grandmother and brother were teachers. My mother taught Latin and French and was the school librarian. My father taught geography and a popular class called Family Living, the precursor to Sociology, which he eventually taught. My grandmother was a beloved one-room school teacher at Knob School, near Sonora in Larue County, Ky.

Sam Abell

Drama school, you know, I own an acting school, Actor Prepares.

Anupam Kher

Teachers need time to engage with colleagues - whether shadowing, mentoring, co-teaching or conferring. They need a voice in school decisions and to be trusted as professionals.

Randi Weingarten

Teachers must learn how to teach ... they need only to be taught more effective ways of teaching.

B. F. Skinner

Traditional education focuses on teaching, not learning. It incorrectly assumes that for every ounce of teaching there is an ounce of learning by those who are taught. However, most of what we learn before, during, and after attending schools is learned without its being taught to us. A child learns such fundamental things as how to walk, talk, eat, dress, and so on without being taught these things. Adults learn most of what they use at work or at leisure while at work or leisure. Most of what is taught in classroom settings is forgotten, and much or what is remembered is irrelevant.

Russell L. Ackoff

I used to work at a school as a teacher's assistant, and my mom is a principal at an elementary school. I don't know, I think that's a pretty good life, teaching kids.