Education is a system of imposed ignorance.

Education is the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the ignorant by the incompetent.

The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.

Mass education cannot work to produce a fair society because its daily practice is practice in rigged competition, suppression and intimidation. The schools we’ve allowed to develop can’t work to teach nonmaterial values, the values which give meaning to everyone’s life, rich or poor, because the structure of schooling is held together by a Byzantine tapestry of reward and threat, of carrots and sticks. Official favor, grades, and other trinkets of subordination have no connection with education; they are the paraphernalia of servitude, not of freedom.

School prepares people for the alienating institutionalization of life, by teaching the necessity of being taught. Once this lesson is learned, people loose their incentive to develop independently; they no longer find it attractive to relate to each other, and the surprises that life offers when it is not predetermined by institutional definition are closed.

For the most part, the educational system doesn’t ask us to access our sensitivity, but to be obedient. To do what is expected. Our natural independent spirit is tamed. Free thought is constrained. There is a set of rules and expectations put upon us that is not about exploring who we are or what we’re capable of. The system is not here for our benefit. It holds us back as individuals to support its own continued existence.

One problem with the way the educational system is set up is that it only recognizes a certain type of intelligence, and it’s incredibly restrictive - very, very restrictive. There’s so many types of intelligence, and people who would be at their best outside of that structure get lost.

our educational system is hung up on precision, the art of being good at approximations is insufficiently valued. This impedes conceptual thinking.

The way I saw the educational system from an early age was that it taught you what to think, not how to think. There was no liberty, really, for free thinking. You were being trained to fit into a society where free thinking was a nuisance.

Intolerance of the views of others and anti-intellectualism are on the rise. In this confrontation, universities and the educational system are, and will continue to be, obvious targets. Education can easily be converted into indoctrination.

Education is a method whereby one acquires a higher grade of prejudices.

Education means an assimilation of white American culture. It decreases the dissimilarity of the Negroes from other Americans.

To educate a person without teaching ethics is to create a menace to society.

What is education but a conditioning of the mind to a society and a way of life.