My Philosophy of Education (Explained Through Quotes)

My philosophy of eduction for our homeschool experience can be supported by various quotes from others as they share our viewpoints.

As a homeschooling family, we spend a great deal of time thinking about education and learning. But I would still probably find it pretty difficult to sit down and write out my philosophy of education. So, instead, I have listed 13 quotes which illustrate my basic ideas about learning and education. After you read these quotes, I'd love to hear which one is your favorite and why!

1. The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think — rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with thoughts of other men. ~Bill Beattie
2. Education would be much more effective if its purpose was to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl should know how much they do not know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it. ~William Haley
3. All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth. ~Aristotle
4. It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. ~Aristotle
5. To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge. ~Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)
6. Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous. ~Confucius
7. The aim of education is the knowledge not of fact, but of values. ~Dean William R. Inge
8. It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows. ~Epictetus
9. Merely to stuff the child with a lot of information, making him pass examinations, is the most unintelligent form of education. ~Jiddu Krishnamurti
10. Who dares to teach must never cease to learn. ~John Cotton Dana
11. The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them. ~Mark Twain
12. I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. ~Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
13. If I ran a school, I'd give the average grade to the ones who gave me all the right answers, for being good parrots. I'd give the top grades to those who made a lot of mistakes and told me about them, and then told me what they learned from them. ~R. Buckminster Fuller

As you can see my philosophy of education encompasses many interesting ideas. What is you favorite quote and do you have others?