Vince Gowmon

"While it is important to educate children, what is much more pressing is the need to love them. When education becomes more important than love, it is no longer education at all. For, tending to the delicate spirit of children is foundational if education is to fulfill its intended purpose of serving the greater whole."

- Vince Gowmon

"Remind yourself daily: While education is useful, it’s love that children and the world need. A deeply loved child with only some education will go much further than a well educated child lacking love."

- Vince Gowmon

"Too much leading and we create anxiety for children. Too much following and the same is true. In wisdom we find balance between the two."

- Vince Gowmon

"Don’t educate a child to become something or someone, educate to help them explore and celebrate who they already are."

- Vince Gowmon

"Stop trying to turn children into someone they are not. Instead, let them unfold into who no human can imagine them to be."

- Vince Gowmon

"Rushing children’s development is a formula for turning them into who they are not. Letting them play is a kind means of meeting them where they are and encouraging their authentic unfolding."

- Vince Gowmon

"Play is the shortest route between children and their creative calling."

- Vince Gowmon

"If a child is acting disruptive within the school system, don’t be too quick to assume there is something wrong with her. She simply may be doing her best to say that the system is not large enough to house the fullness of her creative spirit."

- Vince Gowmon

"It is not intellect but rather imagination that is the source of creativity. What if imagination was nurtured as much if not more in school?"

- Vince Gowmon

"Teaching is learning. They are inseparable. The humility of a teacher is born when this is realized. Only then does teaching really begin."

- Vince Gowmon

"If we want children to play BIG in the world, then let’s let them play in small ways to start."

- Vince Gowmon

"A child learns when time. Some want to read at age three and some don’t care until age eight. There is no right or wrong way, no best timeline. If a child shows no interest in reading or math, it’s because he or she has something far more important to explore."

- Vince Gowmon

"The more adults turn play into a project, the more it loses its very essence. The gifts derived from play are suffocated by unnecessary structure and hovering, leaving little room for the child to learn, develop and enjoy his or her explorations."

- Vince Gowmon

"Learning is alive when experiential, relevant and joyful. It is all but dead when limited to disassociated rationale and sedentariness."

- Vince Gowmon

"If we want children to become creative leaders then we must learn to follow their lead at an early age."

- Vince Gowmon

"Don't educate a child to become something or someone, educate to help them explore and celebrate who they already are."

- Vince Gowmon

"The word ‘education’ comes from the Latin ‘educere’ = e- (out of) + -ducere (to draw). Education is not just about putting information in. We have forgotten that it, in fact, begins in the child’s heart."

- Vince Gowmon

"You cannot make people learn. You can only provide the right conditions for learning to happen."

- Vince Gowmon

"If you trust play, you will not have to control your child’s development as much. Play will raise the child in ways you can never imagine."

- Vince Gowmon

"Be sure that in your educating you are not manufacturing obedient citizens, but rather unleashing powerful, creative souls."

- Vince Gowmon

"The more you teach / push those things that can be measured, the more kids will grow up feeling like they don’t measure up."

- Vince Gowmon

"Instead of teaching children to get ‘there’, why not let them be here? Where is ‘there’ anyway? The world needs more ‘here’ than ‘there’."

- Vince Gowmon

"The best education does not happen at a desk, but rather engaged in everyday living – hands on, exploring, in active relationship with life."

- Vince Gowmon

"To effectively teach a child one must reach the child in mind-body-heart, not just intellect, not just the linear-left brain we make such a priority."

- Vince Gowmon

"The art of teaching lies in knowing the balance between structure and flow, telling and asking, speaking and silence."

- Vince Gowmon

"Rushing children's development is a formula for turning them into who they are not. Letting them play is a kind means of meeting them where they are and encouraging their authentic unfolding."

- Vince Gowmon

"If we want children to play BIG in the world, then let's let them play in small ways to start."

- Vince Gowmon

"A child learns when time. Some want to read at age three and some don't care until age eight. There is no right or wrong way, no best timeline. If a child shows no interest in reading or math, it's because he or she has something far more important to explore."

- Vince Gowmon

"Structure is akin to a fence surrounding a playground. While it is needed, if it is too close, it will stifle exploration and learning."

- Vince Gowmon

"Children learn and listen more willingly when they are met with kindness, empathy and patience; when their core need for connection or attachment is met."

- Vince Gowmon

"Schooling prepares children for jobs, yet getting a job is not what life is about. Life exists in the space between all we deem important."

- Vince Gowmon

"So much developmental trauma can be avoided if we simply give children the right to exercise their natural right to play, to move, to explore the outdoors unsupervised… if we let children be children!"

- Vince Gowmon