Geoffrey Canada Quotes

You have to be prepared to think outside the box ... Stand back and think about what we could do creativity. We've got to do that to push the field forward.

When kids know that you refuse to let them fail ... they don't give up as easy. So sometimes they don't have it inside, [but] they're like,'You know, I don't want to do this, but I know my mother's going to be mad.'That matters to kids, and it helps get them through.

I want to be a children's hero ... Children need heroes because heroes give hope; without hope they have no future.

It's easy to have faith when everything is going great. The real test of faith is when you're facing something that only your faith in God will get you through.

Video games offer violent messages, and even the sports video games include taunting and teasing.

It is important to have permanent safe spaces in Harlem.

Over the past five years, I've met several presidents, several secretaries of education ... and there is no plan. If you want to save your children, you're going to have to do it yourself. It's just us.

My contract with my teachers is fair, and is two pages. The union contract is 200 pages. You cannot manage your business when you cannot make any decision without going back to 200 pages worth of stuff.

When the safety of America is threatened, we will spend any amount of money. The real safety of our nation is preparing this next generation so that they can take our place [in] thinking and technology and democracy.

If you raise a child, there's no time, you can't be a great parent.

Why is it that when we had rotary phones, when we were having folks being crippled by polio, that we were teaching the same way then that we're doing right now?

Teachers need to be paid like professionals.

Let's stop teaching to the middle and start teaching to the student.

People talk about Wall Street greed, but one of the things many people don't understand is that there are a lot of organizations that have been the recipient of largess from the same Wall Street.

When I began working in not-for-profits, it was taking a vow of poverty, which eliminated huge numbers of folks.

An extended school day gives administrators the ability to ensure children get a well-rounded education.

People don't believe or understand that a community can lose hope. You can have a whole community where hopelessness is the norm, where folks don't have faith that things will get better because history and circumstances have proven over 30, 40, or 50 years that things don't get better.

Education is the only billion dollar industry that tolerates abject failure.

Monsters work seven days a week and don't take vacations.

You grow up in America and you're told from day one, 'This is the land of opportunity.' That everybody has an equal chance to make it in this country. And then you look at places like Harlem, and you say, 'That is absolutely a lie.'

The system decides you can't run schools in the summer.

When I first found out that Superman wasn't real, I was about maybe eight. And I was talking to my mother about it. And she was like, 'No, no, no. There's no Superman.' And I started crying. I really thought he was coming to rescue us. The chaos, the violence, the danger. No hero was coming.

One of the things that sells music is when the artist is looked at as someone who's come up from the streets. Not just any streets, but the toughest, meanest streets of the urban ghetto. And that's called 'street credibility.'

Osama Bin Laden is not going to come here and destroy America. Our education system is doing that just fine.

There is an educational cliff we are walking over right this very second.

Many schools today are sacrificing social studies, the arts and physical education so children can cover basic subjects like math, English and science.

You go through the Civil Rights struggle, everybody knew the songs - 'We shall overcome.' Everybody would sing it. Music helped us. James Brown, 'Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud.' They helped black people figure out how to navigate what was a very treacherous place in America for them.

When you see a great teacher, you are seeing a work of art,

If you are a lousy teacher, you should be fired.

You don't need someone destroying you when your own people are the worst messengers possible. And this is what black people in America have not come to grips with.

Boys want to grow up to be like their male role models. And boys who grow up in homes with absent fathers search the hardest to figure out what it means to be male.

Kids who are poor often have families that have not really been kept informed about ... how important it is to read to your child, to reduce stresses in their life, to use positive incentives and words.

The rates of soda consumption in our poorest communities cannot be explained by individual consumer preferences alone, but rather are linked to broader issues of access and affordability of healthy foods in low-income neighborhoods, and to the marketing efforts of soda companies themselves.