“We do not want to produce students who are merely walking encyclopedias of information, good athletes, or good candidates for quiz programs, but men and women capable of reflective and original thought, inquisitive, accustomed to hard mental work, aware of the fact that the only permanent victory the ... century will be a victory won over the minds and hearts of man, not with bullets, but with ideas and ideals.”
Our Quote of the Week prompts us to envision an education system that creates open-minded, open-hearted human beings who work proactively to create a safer, more engaged and loving world.
This week’s quote is from Sargent Shriver’s 1955 Speech at Kenwood and Murray Schools PTA. Many people know Shriver’s accomplishments with the Peace Corps and the War on Poverty, but fewer realize that his career in public service began in education. While living in Chicago in the 1950s, he served as the president of the Chicago Board of Education. He threw himself into this role with great passion, tackling the serious challenges that Chicago public schools faced in the 1950s, from segregation funding shortages.
Although his career shifted away from education when Shriver went to work on John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign and then on the Peace Corps, he continued to stress the notion that a solid education for all citizens was both a country’s greatest asset as well as a fundamental human right. It’s no coincidence, for example, that the programs of the War on Poverty included a very visible (and very successful) early childhood education program, Head Start.
As a new academic year begins, may we aspire to the vision for education that Shriver laid out in this week’s quote: for a system that nurtures students so that they are not merely learning by rote or improving their athletic abilities, but that they are learning to think expansively, to communicate effectively and with empathy, and to create a more safe and peaceful world for all of us.
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