“The clearest example is the repeated use of the word “tolerate.” Students would write that we must not persecute homosexuals, prostitutes, mental patients, and others, that we must be “tolerant” of them. But one tolerates only those that one considers less than equal, morally inferior, and weak; those equal to oneself, one accepts and respects; one does not merely allow them to exist, one does not “tolerate” them.”

“Human beings are by nature generators of ideas, what I didn’t understand was how it was that some children recognized the power of their ideas while others became alienated from their own genius. How did schools, in small and unconscious ways, silence these persistent playground intellectuals? Could schools, if organized differently, keep this nascent power alive, extend it, and thus make a difference in what we grow up to be?”