Home / Quotes / Quote by C. Sommerville

Quote by C. Sommerville

“Ambivalence reaches the level of schizophrenia in our treatment of violence among the young. Parents do not encourage violence, but neither do they take up arms against the industries which encourage it. Parents hide their eyes from the books and comics, slasher films, videos and lyrics which form the texture of an adolescent culture. While all successful societies have inhibited instinct, ours encourages it. Or at least we profess ourselves powerless to interfere with it.”

Quote by C. Sommerville

Author

C. Sommerville, born on August 15, 1938, is a scholar whose identity and profession are not yet clear. His life experience and contributions are limited by available information. more

You May Also Like

“Quintilian [educational writer in Rome around A.D. 100] thought that the earliest years of the child's life were crucial. Education should start earlier than age seven, within the family. It should not be so hard as to give the child an aversion to learning. Rather, these early lessons would take the form of play--that embryonic notion of kindergarten.”

Giving Should Years Children Hard Play Age Form Childhood Lessons Seven Notion Educational Crucial Rome Aversion Kindergarten Early Childhood Early Childhood Education

Author:C. Sommerville

“Parents are used to being made to feel guilty about...their contribution to the population problem, the school tax burden, and declining test scores. They expect to be blamed by teachers and psychologists, if not by police. And they will be blamed by the children themselves. It is hardy a wonder, then, that they withdraw into what used to be called "permissiveness" but is really neglect.”

“We like the idea of childhood but are not always crazy about the kids we know. We like it, that is, when we are imagining our ownchildhoods. So part of our apparent appreciation of youth is simply envy.”

Knows Ideas Kids Crazy Childhood Youth Appreciation Envy

Author:C. Sommerville

“The person who designed a robot that could act and think as well as your four-year-old would deserve a Nobel Prize. But there is no public recognition for bringing up several truly human beings.”

Thinking Years Humans Wells Persons Human Beings Four Deserve Recognition Prize Four Years Robots Nobel Nobel Prize

Author:C. Sommerville

“Could it be that those who were reared in the postwar years really were spoiled, as we used to hear? Did a child-centered generation, raised in depression and war, produce a self-centered generation that resents children and parenthood?”

Years Children War Self Used Generations Produce Raised Parenthood Self Centered Spoiled Resent

Author:C. Sommerville

“In the years of the Roman Republic, before the Christian era, Roman education was meant to produce those character traits that would make the ideal family man. Children were taught primarily to be good to their families. To revere gods, one's parents, and the laws of the state were the primary lessons for Roman boys. Cicero described the goal of their child rearing as "self- control, combined with dutiful affection to parents, and kindliness to kindred.”

“[17th-century] Puritans were the first modern parents. Like many of us, they looked on their treatment of children as a test of their own self-control. Their goal was not to simply to ensure the child's duty to the family, but to help him or her make personal, individual commitments. They were the first authors to state that children must obey God rather than parents, in case of a clear conflict.”

Firsts Children Self States Helping Individual Parent Goal Cases Clear Modern Century Duty Conflict Commitment Tests Treatment Self Control Puritan 17th Century

Author:C. Sommerville

“Children became an obsessive theme in Victorian culture at the same time that they were being exploited as never before. As the horrors of life multiplied for some children, the image of childhood was increasingly exalted. Children became the last symbols of purity in a world which was seen as increasingly ugly.”

World Children Lasts Culture Childhood Horror Ugly Symbols Purity Theme Obsessive Exalted Victorian

Author:C. Sommerville

“A good education ought to help people to become both more receptive to and more discriminating about the world: seeing, feeling, and understanding more, yet sorting the pertinent from the irrelevant with an ever finer touch, increasingly able to integrate what they see and to make meaning of it in ways that enhance their ability to go on growing.”

Source: Effective Teaching and Mentoring: Realizing the Transformational Power of Adult Learning Experiences

“Many of us carry memories of an influential teacher who may scarcely know we existed, yet who said something at just the right time in our lives to snap a whole world into focus.”

Knows World May Said Whole Memories Focus Teacher Our Lives Whole World Right Time Influential Snaps

Book:Mentor: Guiding the Journey of Adult Learners (with New Foreword, Introduction, and Afterword)

Source: Mentor: Guiding the Journey of Adult Learners (with New Foreword, Introduction, and Afterword)