Most of our communication technologies began as diminished substitutes for an impossible activity.

These inventions were not created to be improvements upon face-to-face communication, but a declension of acceptable, if diminished, substitutes for it.

we began to prefer the diminished substitutes.

it’s easier to check in without becoming entangled.

Each step “forward” has made it easier, just a little, to avoid the emotional work of being present, to convey information rather than humanity.

My daily use of technological communication has been shaping me into someone more likely to forget others.

Your future depends on it; my salary depends on it.

until I got to Central High, I literally didn't know I was a good student, because the question never came up.

There were tests, but they just gave information about what's going on. This is something we ought to be doing better.

"How can mosquitoes fly in the rain?" And then, but why is there a problem? Well, you study the force of the raindrop hitting a mosquito - it's like a person being hit by a locomotive.

It doesn't matter how much you learn in school; it's whether you learn how to go on and do things by yourself.

Control from above, control by the administrators. No respect for the working person, whether it's a teacher or machinist.

Kids are naturally creative, and of course, you don't have to beat it out of them. That's why they're asking, "Why?" all the time.

You can't let teachers control the classroom. That's teaching to test; then the teachers are disciplined. They do what you tell them. Their salaries depend on it; their jobs depend on it. They become sociopaths like everyone else. And you have a society where it's only, "Look after me; I'll forget everyone else."