Let's stop teaching to the middle and start teaching to the student. Geoffrey Canada More Quotes by Geoffrey Canada More Quotes From Geoffrey Canada One of the things that sells music is when the artist is looked at as someone who's come up from the streets. Not just any streets, but the toughest, meanest streets of the urban ghetto. And that's called 'street credibility'. Geoffrey Canada urban ghetto artist When I was growing up, kids used to talk about snitching... It never extended as a cultural norm outside of the gangsters. Geoffrey Canada snitch growing-up kids If you raise a child, there's no time, you can't be a great parent. Geoffrey Canada raises parent children Movies portray men as tough guys. Geoffrey Canada tough guy men Good dental care doesn't make you a good student, but if your tooth hurts, it's hard to be a good student. Geoffrey Canada your good you care People don't believe or understand that a community can lose hope. You can have a whole community where hopelessness is the norm, where folks don't have faith that things will get better because history and circumstances have proven over 30, 40, or 50 years that things don't get better. Geoffrey Canada you hope faith history How is it we could have a system where schools could remain lousy for 50 years and yet you do exactly the same thing this year that they did 50 years ago when it didn't work then, and no one feels any pressure to change? Geoffrey Canada you change pressure work At a school in Massachusetts where I once worked, we managed early on through consensus. Which sounds wonderful, but it was just a very, very difficult way to sort of manage anything, because convincing everybody to do one particular thing, especially if it was hard, was almost impossible. Geoffrey Canada difficult impossible way school When I first found out that Superman wasn't real, I was about maybe eight. And I was talking to my mother about it. And she was like, 'No, no, no. There's no Superman.' And I started crying. I really thought he was coming to rescue us. The chaos, the violence, the danger. No hero was coming. Geoffrey Canada chaos violence hero mother Video games offer violent messages, and even the sports video games include taunting and teasing. Geoffrey Canada offer video-games games sports When I began working in not-for-profits, it was taking a vow of poverty, which eliminated huge numbers of folks. Geoffrey Canada which working poverty numbers Poverty places not just one or two obstacles but multiple obstacles in a child's pathway to what we would consider to be regular development - cognitively, intellectually and emotionally. Geoffrey Canada child obstacles poverty development Kids who are poor often have families that have not really been kept informed about... how important it is to read to your child, to reduce stresses in their life, to use positive incentives and words. Geoffrey Canada words child positive life My own faith was nurtured by my grandmother and her clinging deeply to her faith when she was dying a painful and slow death from cancer. Geoffrey Canada slow my-own faith death I believe that for lots of churches and religious institutions, their main focus on the development of faith among parishioners needs to spread to the community. Geoffrey Canada focus community faith believe Convincing people to give your way a try will work if you neutralize - and sometimes you have to cauterize - the ones who really are against change. They're the kind of person who, if you tell them it's raining outside, they'll fight you tooth and nail. Geoffrey Canada you change work people The tendency in lots of large organizations is to try and find a comfortable place where you think you can get measured rewards for measured work. Geoffrey Canada place think you work There's not a day that goes by that I don't draw on my undergraduate background in psychology. Geoffrey Canada goes background day psychology My contract with my teachers is fair, and is two pages. The union contract is 200 pages. You cannot manage your business when you cannot make any decision without going back to 200 pages worth of stuff. Geoffrey Canada teachers you decision business If you are a lousy teacher, you should be fired. Geoffrey Canada fired you should teacher