Einstein's Education Quotes

The following are quotes by Albert Einstein illustrating his view of education. I hope that he would see us today as having progressed quite a bit towards his ideals. In my humble opinion, I believe that especially the last one has changed and that the word "most" no longer applies. The first three are pretty much my philosophy of education.

Einstein's Education Quotes:

Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty.

Never regard your study as duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberation influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later work belongs.

The aim (of education) must be the training of independently acting and thinking individuals who, however, can see in the service to the community their highest life achievement

Humiliation and mental oppression by ignorant and selfish teachers wreak havoc in the youthful mind that can never be undone and often exert a baleful influence in later life.

In the teaching of geography and history a sympathetic understanding (should) be fostered for the characteristics of the different peoples of the world, especially for those who we are in the habit of describing as "primitive."

Most teachers waste their time by asking questions which are intended to discover that what a pupil does not know, whereas the true art of questioning has for its purpose to discover what the pupil knows or is capable of knowing.

Einstein's Birthday & Pi day!

Happy Birthday Einstein!

I think it is a great coincidence that Einstein has his birthday on Pi Day. Of course they are completely unrealated, but I like the thought. I will have to get a Pi tie. I have an Einstein tie. I bought this one at a Reading conference in Denver, CO. I had a great time with a few good fellow Reading teachers.

I really have grown to love the idea of Einstein. It is not the fact that he was the "smartest man in the world" or even the father of the atomic age. Einstein was no doubt a gifted man beyond comparison. Yet, to me it was his humble attitude and willingness to support humankind that makes him worth looking up to. He took his position of fame and intellectual role model seriously. Did you know that Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel? He turned it down.

He was a great man and made many great observations. Some of his greatest education quotes are posted in the above entry.