With a bending sail we glided rapidly by Tyngsborough and Chelmsford, each holding in one hand half of a tart country apple pie wh...ich we had purchased to celebrate our return, and in the other a fragment of the newspaper in which it was wrapped, devouring these with divided relish, and learning the news which had transpired since we sailed. The river here opened into a broad and straight reach of great length, which we bounded merrily over before a smacking breeze, with a devil-may-care look in our faces, and our boat a white bone in its mouth, and a speed which greatly astonished some scow boatmen whom we met. The wind in the horizon rolled like a flood over valley and plain, and every tree bent to the blast, and the mountains like school-boys turned their cheeks to it.... Thus we sailed, not being able to fly, but as next best, making a long furrow in the fields of the Merrimack toward our home, with our wings spread, but never lifting our heel from the watery trench; gracefully plowing homeward with our brisk and willing team, wind and stream, pulling together, the former yet a wild steer, yoked to his more sedate fellow. It was very near flying, as when the duck rushes through the water with an impulse of her wings, throwing the spray about her before she can rise. How we had stuck fast if drawn up but a few feet on the shore!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... much less time should be given to school, and much more to domestic employments, especially in the wealthier classes. A little... girl may begin, at five or six years of age, to assist her mother: and, if properly trained, by the time she is ten, she can render essential aid. From this time, until she is fourteen or fifteen, it should be the principal object of her education to secure a strong and healthy constitution, and a thorough practical knowledge of all kinds of domestic employments. During this period, though some attention ought to be paid to intellectual culture, it ought to be made altogether secondary in importance.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I am both a public and a private school boy myself, having always changed schools just as the class in English in the new school w...as taking up Silas Marner, with the result that it was the only book in the English language that I knew until I was eighteen--but, boy, did I know Silas Marner!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
School days, school days; dear old golden rule days. Readin' and 'ritin' and 'rithmetic; taught to the tune of a hick'ry stic...k.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Nevertheless, no school can work well for children if parents and teachers do not act in partnership on behalf of the children's b...est interests. Parents have every right to understand what is happening to their children at school, and teachers have the responsibility to share that information without prejudicial judgment.... Such communication, which can only be in a child's interest, is not possible without mutual trust between parent and teacher.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The young love and cherish people and places from which they receive the skills and the emotional support which enable them to mak...e it in the world or to meet their basic human needs. The same people and places are often the first recipients of the frustration and anger--violence, vandalism, disrespect--of young people who are not making it well in the world. I suspect that this is the reason that personal and school property violence is increasing more rapidly than school burglary and dropout rates.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Children in home-school conflict situations often receive a double message from their parents: "The school is the hope for your fu...ture, listen, be good and learn" and "the school is your enemy. . . ." Children who receive the "school is the enemy" message often go after the enemy--act up, undermine the teacher, undermine the school program, or otherwise exercise their veto power.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Children who grow up in stimulating, emotionally supportive, highly verbal, and protective environments where the caretaker teache...s and models skill development are usually ready for school. When the child is able to meet expectations, he or she receives praise or a positive feedback in school. This also compliments the caretaker--a child-rearing job well done. The caretaker or parent and school people feel good about each other. The child receives a message from parents that the school program is good. The positive emotional bond between parents and child is extended to the school. The school staff can then serve as parent surrogates. This facilitates learning.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We are now a nation of people in daily contact with strangers. Thanks to mass transportation, school administrators and teachers o...ften live many miles from the neighborhood schoolhouse. They are no longer in daily informal contact with parents, ministers, and other institution leaders . . . [and are] no longer a natural extension of parental authority.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
While most of today's jobs do not require great intelligence, they do require greater frustration tolerance, personal discipline, ...organization, management, and interpersonal skills than were required two decades and more ago. These are precisely the skills that many of the young people who are staying in school today, as opposed to two decades ago, lack.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »