"And that's actually the brunt of what we do is, people going straight from their workplace, straight from home, straight into the classroom and working directly with the students. So then we're able to work with thousands and thousands more students"
About this Quote
Dave Eggers foregrounds a simple, almost stubborn faith in direct human contact as the engine of educational change. The path he sketches is literal and immediate: from workplace or home to classroom, with no ornate detours through bureaucracy or grand theory. By shrinking the distance between everyday life and school, he turns community time and talent into a tangible resource for students who need attention now.
This is the ethos behind 826 Valencia and the broader 826 National network he helped build, where volunteers tutor young people in writing and storytelling. The model treats mentorship as a civic reflex rather than a specialized, gated profession. If you can show up, you can help. That accessibility does more than fill gaps; it dignifies community knowledge, spreading the responsibility for education across a city rather than isolating it within overburdened schools.
Eggers also makes a claim about scale. The phrase thousands and thousands more students rejects the idea that one charismatic teacher or one spectacular program will fix systemic problems alone. Multiply small, face-to-face sessions by many willing adults and the aggregate becomes powerful. The multiplier is not technology or policy but the density of relationships. It is a logistics of generosity, where replication comes from lowering the barrier to entry and trusting volunteers to do meaningful, discrete tasks under the guidance of educators.
There is a subtle critique embedded here too. Donations and policy debates have their place, but they rarely deliver the immediacy of a student receiving feedback on a paragraph, or the confidence that blooms when a mentor says, Keep going. Teachers, often stretched thin, gain allies; students gain models of adult life beyond school walls. By insisting on movement straight into the classroom, Eggers dissolves the myth that change must be slow and centralized. What he offers is a civic choreography: short distances, many hands, and an insistence that proximity itself is a strategy.
This is the ethos behind 826 Valencia and the broader 826 National network he helped build, where volunteers tutor young people in writing and storytelling. The model treats mentorship as a civic reflex rather than a specialized, gated profession. If you can show up, you can help. That accessibility does more than fill gaps; it dignifies community knowledge, spreading the responsibility for education across a city rather than isolating it within overburdened schools.
Eggers also makes a claim about scale. The phrase thousands and thousands more students rejects the idea that one charismatic teacher or one spectacular program will fix systemic problems alone. Multiply small, face-to-face sessions by many willing adults and the aggregate becomes powerful. The multiplier is not technology or policy but the density of relationships. It is a logistics of generosity, where replication comes from lowering the barrier to entry and trusting volunteers to do meaningful, discrete tasks under the guidance of educators.
There is a subtle critique embedded here too. Donations and policy debates have their place, but they rarely deliver the immediacy of a student receiving feedback on a paragraph, or the confidence that blooms when a mentor says, Keep going. Teachers, often stretched thin, gain allies; students gain models of adult life beyond school walls. By insisting on movement straight into the classroom, Eggers dissolves the myth that change must be slow and centralized. What he offers is a civic choreography: short distances, many hands, and an insistence that proximity itself is a strategy.
Quote Details
| Topic | Teaching |
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