Education is what remains when we have forgotten all that we have been taught.
George Savile, Marquis of
Halifax (1633-1695) English statesman and author.
Quotes
Archived Posts from this Category
May 31, 2007
May 18, 2007
On Education:
[A process] which makes one rogue cleverer than another.
Oscar Wilde (1856-1900) Irish poet and dramatist.
One of my favourites .. Wilde had an amazing sense of humour.. There have been tons and tons of books written on quotes by Oscar Wilde. His paradoxical, intellegant and ironical and his — as one book is titled – Wicked Wits are just ming boggling ..pls. read below for some of his other amazing quotes.
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A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.
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When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.
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By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.
More on this genious, later.
May 16, 2007
Two men who differ as to the ends of life cannot hope to agree about education
Bertrand Russell
Well.well well..though this quote seems very simple and true (I am not saying that it isn’t) but there is a lot more into it.. We can get a couple of hints out of it..
First is that Mr. Russell does not seem to be very gender sensitive.. as he uses two men instead of two people. Inspite of that he was considered as a women’s man..(If you study his biography he had atleast 4 to 5 recorded affairs – mostly extramarital) 
. One reason I can think of for this is, He didn’t do any post graduate diploma in NGO Mgmt. from EDI..
Jokes apart, he raises a very important issue here ..He says that, ‘Two men who differ to the ends of life cannot hope to agree about Education’.
So, What do we make out of it? In a way it is very simple that education is a process (probably never ending) which enables you to live your life according your values, aspirations & Goals or Aims (Pls. note that I am not talking about just schools here.). But, Goals, Values, Aspirations – These are all loaded words and most of us attribute different meanings to this (If at all they do..).. and if the parents, teachers, policy makers and administrators all share a different meaning towards these things and in all towards the ends/goal of life..imagine what would happen of a child ….Actually you don’t need to do much of an imagination for this ..look at your own self (Honesty is a pre condition), Unless you are the ‘chosen’ or ’enlightened’ one you will observe the degree of ambiguity the senselessness that we(most of us) live our lives with and if you are one of those ‘enlighthened ones’ then look at me (One of the most confused animal’s on this planet – This is probably the only thing I can be sure about .
So, coming back to the point again and this time straight, what is implied here is that, there should be at least some amount of agreement (not the ones that we have at a very superficial level ) amongst the educators and policy makers about the ends of life.. the true aim/goal/purpose of life (Look this is not a strategic management class, So, I won’t differentiate between Mission/Vision/Aim/Goal and all…this is matter of life..)
But, the problem is also very simple … Do we really have time or care to think on such issues at all….This reminds me of an incident.. A Philosophy student once asks an MBA , Are Ignorance & Apathy the biggest problems we face today ? The MBA responds, I don’t know & I don’t care..
Let me finish this with one more quote from Bertrant Russell, though it may not be very directly related to education but it is directly related to me ..:)
“Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.”
* Ah and yes, about the title, when we go to the tea stalls, we can also order half tea instead of full and there is a seperate term for half tea which is ‘cutting’..So, we whenever we have to order for half tea we say Ek Cutting.. So, this was Bertrant Russell, Cutting ..and Please get ready for Bertrant Russell, Pot Tea..Soon.. he has written quite a bit about education..
May 16, 2007
Lets complete the full cycle…yesterday we saw something positive on eduction..now its the time for reality Lets take a very subtle remark from Pablo Picasso here..
All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
— Pablo Picasso.
May 15, 2007
This being a first quote let us start with something Positive..
Education is too important to be left solely to educators.
Francis Keppel
and very simple too
