Sidney Poitier on childhood education

Child psychologists have demonstrated that our minds are actually constructed by these thousands of tiny interactions during the first few years of life.  We aren't just what we're taught.  It's what we experience during those early years - a smile here, a jarring sound there - that creates the pathways and connections of the brain.  We put our kids to fifteen years of quick-cut advertising, passive television watching, and sadistic video games, and we expect to see emerge a new generation of calm, compassionate, and engaged human beings?

~ Sidney Poitier