A child needs love the most when he deserves it the least.
Дитина найбільше потребує любові, коли найменше її заслуговує.
A child’s spirit is easily broken and difficult to heal.
Душу дитини легко зламати, але важко вилікувати.
A man among children will long be a child.
Той, хто живе серед дітей довго залишається дитиною.
THE IDEAL SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE.
It should be mentioned that there, is a great number of different kinds of schools now. And to tell the truth, though they have very much in common, at the same time each school has something original.
If I were a founder of a new type of school, the main idea should be: to make the school fit the child- instead of making the child fit this school Obviously, a school that makes active children sit at desks studying mostly useless subjects is a bad school.
My dream is to make a school, which would alow children freedom to be themselves. In order to this it is necessary to renounce all discipline, all direction, all suggestion, all moral training. It doesn't requite courage. All it requires is a complete belief in the child as a good, not an evil being. My view is that a child is innately wise and realistic. If left to adult suggestion of any kind, he will develop as far as he is capable of developing.
I think of a school which is logically a place where people who have the innate ability and wish to be scholars will be scholars; while those who are only fit to sweep the streets. I would, rather see a school produce a happy street cleaner than a neurotic scholar.
What would this school be like? For one thing, lessons wouldn't be optional. The children would have classes according to their interests and according to their age.
You would seldom hear a child cry, because children when free have much less hate to express than children who, are downtrodden. Hate breeds hate, love breeds love. Love means approving of children, and that is essential in any school. You can't be on the side of children if you punish them and storm at them. It would be a school in which the child know that he is approved of.
The function of the child is to live his own life not the life that his anxious parents think he should live, nor a life according to the purpose of the educator who thinks he knows what is best.
In school of my dream everyone would have equal rights. At the General School Meeting the vote of a child of six would count for as master's vote would. Free children are not easily influenced; the absence of fear accounts for this phenomenon. Indeed, the absence of fear is the finest thing that can happen to а сhild.