Education Quote by Tracy Kidder

The line lands because it undercuts the romantic myth of the “born writer” with a deadpan origin story: not youthful brilliance, but clerical labor. Kidder frames “learning to write” as the hardest part, then immediately reveals how little actual writing he’d done. The punch is in the specificity: “Social Studies,” “13,” “copying passages,” “right out of the encyclopedia.” It’s a portrait of schooling that rewards compliance and transcription, not voice or thought. The kid isn’t failing at writing; he’s never been asked to do it.

The intent feels quietly corrective. Kidder, a reporter-novelist known for immersing himself in systems and everyday work, is signaling that craft is learned, and that the learning often begins against a backdrop that misunderstands what the craft is. Copying from an encyclopedia is the perfect symbol for pre-internet “research”: information treated as inert authority, ideas treated as cargo you haul from A to B. No wonder the leap to real writing feels brutal; it requires judgment, selection, rhythm, and risk, none of which appear in the assignment.

There’s also a subtle ethics lesson embedded in the confession. He’s admitting to a kind of sanctioned plagiarism that many students experienced as normal. That matters coming from a professional whose job depends on attributing, synthesizing, and transforming sources. The subtext: writing isn’t typing words; it’s making meaning, and institutions often teach everything around that except the thing itself.