Programmed robot

As teachers and parents, we must always be careful not to think we are the shapers of students and children. We are there to guide them in their growth, not to force it upon them.

From a student letter, in Haim Ginott's Teacher & Child:

"I have always been slow with numbers. But my math teacher treated me as though I were a wrongly programmed robot whose wires she had to change. I had nothing to say about this operation. No one asked me how I felt about the projects invented for me. I was tutored mercilessly. I was pushed, tested, and retested. My teacher was determined to prove that no one in her class could fail. But I succeeded in surprising her."