Nature not plastic — I go to this home and I sing songs and I read as many books as the child wants me to read in an evening. And these are parents who are in the school and I know they care about me and I know they care about the philosophy. I know they believe the philosophy and it was almost more than I could bear when I saw all of the plastic. It was a room that is bigger than you can imagine, filled with plastic stuff for kids. Plastic fruit, plastic food, plastic this and plastic that. There was nothing real, nothing really authentic in that house.

Dirt is for walking — We live in a world that doesn’t know how to be with kids. There was a mother and her little kid who’s barely walking, walking down the sidewalk, and the little girl stepped off into the dirt and the mother said, “Oh no, no, no, dirt is not for walking in. The sidewalk is for walking on.” No, no, no, dirt is for walking on, it’s much easier on your knees and your legs and has uneven surfaces. The brain needs uneven surfaces. It’s amazing how far off we’ve gotten but it’s that public place that we’ve put children.

Children know this is the right place — I think parents, when they come to our place, know. There’s a moment when they can go back deep inside and they say well yes, this is right, this is right for my kid.

Being self-directed — One of the things that I want for children more than anything else in the world is to be self-directed, self-evaluators. To be able to look at what they’ve done and to wonder about it. To be either dissatisfied or satisfied to try it again.

We have made learning so boring — We have made lessons so boring, so demeaning.

Young children are egocentric — Young children, and it’s so obvious when you watch them, are egocentric. Their main concern is themselves. They don’t the ability to share.