What You Are To Be, You Are

I Believe That The Testing Of The Student's Achievements In Order To See If He Meets Some Criterion Held By The Teacher, Is Directly Contrary To The Implications Of Therapy For Significant Learning.

Experience Is The Highest Authority.

I Think My Deepest Criticism Of The Educational System . . . Is That It's All Based Upon A Distrust Of The Student. Don't Trust Him To Follow His Own Leads; Guide Him; Tell Him What To Do; Tell Him What He Should Think; Tell Him What He Should Learn. Consequently At The Very Age When He Should Be Developing Adult Characteristics Of Choice And Decision Making, When He Should Be Trusted On Some Of Those Things, Trusted To Make Mistakes And To Learn From Those Mistakes, He Is, Instead, Regimented And Shoved Into A Curriculum, Whether It Fits Him Or Not.

There Is Another Peculiar Satisfaction In Really Hearing Someone: It Is Like Listening To The Music Of The Spheres, Because Beyond The Immediate Message Of The Person, No Matter What That Might Be, There Is The Universal. Hidden In All Of The Personal Communications Which I Really Hear There Seem To Be Orderly Psychological Laws, Aspects Of The Same Order We Find In The Universe As A Whole. So There Is Both The Satisfaction Of Hearing This Person And Also The Satisfaction Of Feeling One's Self In Touch With What Is Universally True.

The Way Of Being With Another Person Which Is Termed Empathic...means Temporarily Living In Their Life, Moving Abut In It Delicately Without Making Judgment... To Be With Another In This Way Means That For The Time Being You Lay Aside The Views And Values You Hold For Yourself In Order To Enter The Other's World Without Prejudice...a Complex, Demanding, Strong Yet Subtle And Gentle Way Of Being.