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Collection of historically inaccurate quotes predicting the downfall of technology and education, contrasted with modern insights on the challenges of the education system.
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I see no advantage to the graphical user interface. Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft, 1984
There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home. Ken Olsen, president and founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977
I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stagecoaches? The Quarterly Review, England, 1825
This “telephone” has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value. Western Union internal memo, 1876
The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty, a fad, a passing fancy. President of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Horace Racham (Henry Ford’s lawyer) not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903
While television may be theoretically feasible, commercially and financially I consider it an impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming. Lee DeForest, American radio pioneer, 1926
There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be attainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will. • Albert Einstein, 1932
Our schools are, in a sense, factories in which the new materials (children) are to be shaped and fashioned in order to meet the various demands of life. The specifications for manufacturing come from the demands of the 20th century civilization, and it is the business of the school to build its pupils according to the specifications laid down. William J. Harris, influential late 19th century educator
The teacher must remain the key…Debates over educational policy are moot if the primary agents of instruction are incapable of performing their functions well. No microcomputer will replace them, no television system will clone and distribute them, no scripted lessons will direct and control them, no voucher system will bypass them. Lee Shulman, 1996
The principalship is the loneliest occupation I've ever had. Mike Chappel, Principal, Zebulon Elementary School, Zebulon, North Carolina.
It is easier to change the location of a cemetery than it is to change a school curriculum. Woodrow Wilson
There is a great danger in the present day lest science- teaching should degenerate into the accumulation of disconnected facts and unexplained formulae, which burden the memory without cultivating the understanding. J. D. Everett, 1873
This is the first time in the history of education-certainly in this century-where the students are better at the delivery system than the teachers. That has profound implications, not the least of which is the power balance in the classroom. Dr. Barry Munitz, president and CEO of The J. Paul Getty Trust
God didn’t create self-contained classrooms, fifty-minute periods, and subjects taught in isolation. We did - because we find working alone safer than and preferable to working together. Barth 1991
To put it as succinctly as possible, if you want to change and improve the climate and outcomes of schooling both for students and teachers, there are features of the school culture that have to be changed, and if they are not changed, your well-intentioned efforts will be defeated. Seymour Sarason, 1996
Schools are trapped by a leadership dilemma: they require skilled, effective principals in order to outgrow their utter dependence on those principals. Tom Donahoe, 1993
Without a competent caring individual in the principal’s position, the task of school reform is very difficult. Reform can be initiated from outside the school or stimulated from within. But in the end, it is the principal who implements and sustains the changes through the inevitable roller coaster of euphoria and setbacks. Louis Gerstner, 1994
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. William A. Ward
Computers in classrooms are the filmstrips of the 1990s. We loved them because we didn’t have to think for an hour, teachers loved them because they didn’t have to teach, and parents loved them because it showed their schools were high-tech. But no learning happened. Clifford Stoll
We receive 3 educations: one from our parents, one from our schoolmaster, and one from the world. The third contradicts all the first two teach us. Baron de Montesquieu
I mean when in the real world am I ever gonna need chemistry or history or math or…the English language? Buffy, the Vampire Slayer
Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer. C. C. Colton, Lacon: Reflections, No. 322.
Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts. Henry Brooks Adams (1828-1918) U.S. historian and writer
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer.