Quotes- About Teaching
“The
best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow,
"is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may
grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening
to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the
world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in
the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn.
Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the
mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or
distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you.
Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King
“It
would seem that you have no useful skill or talent whatsoever," he said.
"Have you thought of going into teaching?”
― Terry Pratchett
― Terry Pratchett
“[Kids]
don't remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are.”
― Jim Henson, It's Not Easy Being Green: And Other Things to Consider
― Jim Henson, It's Not Easy Being Green: And Other Things to Consider
“A
person can learn a lot from a dog, even a loopy one like ours. Marley taught me
about living each day with unbridled exuberance and joy, about seizing the moment
and following your heart. He taught me to appreciate the simple things-a walk
in the woods, a fresh snowfall, a nap in a shaft of winter sunlight. And as he
grew old and achy, he taught me about optimism in the face of adversity.
Mostly, he taught me about friendship and selflessness and, above all else,
unwavering loyalty.”
― John Grogan, Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog
― John Grogan, Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog
If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”
― Antoine de Saint-ExupĂ©ry
“Wisdom
cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds
like foolishness to someone else ... Knowledge can be communicated, but not
wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate
and teach it.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
“Don't
fuck with an English major. They keep lots of useless crap trapped in their
heads. Once in a while they let some of it out and it bites you square on the
ass.”
― P.C. Cast, Divine By Mistake
― P.C. Cast, Divine By Mistake
“The
mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates.
The great teacher inspires.”
― William Arthur Ward
― William Arthur Ward
“Adults
constantly raise the bar on smart children, precisely because they're able to
handle it. The children get overwhelmed by the tasks in front of them and gradually
lose the sort of openness and sense of accomplishment they innately have. When
they're treated like that, children start to crawl inside a shell and keep everything
inside. It takes a lot of time and effort to get them to open up again. Kids'
hearts are malleable, but once they gel it's hard to get them back the way they
were.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
“I
am afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of hell, unless they
diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures and engraving them in the
heart of the youth.”
― Martin Luther
― Martin Luther
“No
man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the
dawning of your knowledge.
The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.
If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.
If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
“Only
those who look with the eyes of children can lose themselves in the object of
their wonder. ”
― Eberhard Arnold
― Eberhard Arnold
“There's
a lot of talk these days about giving children self-esteem. It's not something
you can give; it's something they have to build. Coach Graham worked in a
no-coddling zone. Self-esteem? He knew there was really only one way to teach
kids how to develop it: You give them something they can't do, they work hard until
they find they can do it, and you just keep repeating the process.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture
“I’ve
come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom.
It’s my personal approach that creates the climate. It’s my daily mood that
makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s
life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.
I can humiliate or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides
whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized.”
― Haim G. Ginott
― Haim G. Ginott
“True
teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their
students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse,
encouraging them to create their
own.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis
own.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis
“A
child who is protected from all controversial ideas is as vulnerable as a child
who is protected from every germ. The infection, when it comes- and it will
come- may overwhelm the system, be it the immune system or the belief system.”
― Jane Smiley
― Jane Smiley
“The
biggest challenge facing the great teachers and communicators of history is not
to teach history itself, nor even the lessons of history, but why history
matters. How to ignite the first spark of the will o'the wisp, the Jack
o'lantern, the ignis fatuus [foolish fire] beloved of poets, which lights up
one source of history and then another, zigzagging across the marsh, connecting
and linking and writing bright words across the dark face of the present.
There's no phrase I can come up that will encapsulate in a winning sound-bite
why history matters. We know that history matters, we know that it is
thrilling, absorbing, fascinating, delightful and infuriating, that it is life.
Yet I can't help wondering if it's a bit like being a Wagnerite; you just have
to get used to the fact that some people are never going to listen.”
― Stephen Fry, Making History
― Stephen Fry, Making History
“Seek
opportunities to show you care. The smallest gestures often make the biggest
difference.”
― John Wooden
― John Wooden
“When
you study great teachers... you will learn much more from their caring and hard
work than from their style.”
― William Glasser
― William Glasser
“All
teachings are mere references. The true experience is living your own life.
Then, even the holiest of words are only words.”
― Deng Ming-Dao
― Deng Ming-Dao
“I
never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they
can learn.”
― Albert Einstein
― Albert Einstein
“Bodily
exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is
acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.”
― Plato, The Republic
― Plato, The Republic
“We
now understand that higher-level thinking is more likely to occur in the brain
of a student who is emotionally secure than in the brain of a student who is
scared, upset, anxious, or stressed.”
― Mawhinney and Sagan
― Mawhinney and Sagan
“The
only person who is spiritually smart is the one who has learned how to learn,
unlearn, and change directions instantly, and start all over again, if your
soul calls for it.”
― Michelle Casto
― Michelle Casto
“part
of the art of teaching is the ability to rearrange the world for students - to
force them to see things in a new way. i've known too many stupid intellectuals
to believe that education and wisdom come as a package deal along with facts,
it's your perspective that counts - your ability to see differently, not just
to see a lot.”
― Sunny Decker, An Empty Spoon
― Sunny Decker, An Empty Spoon
“Teaching
is only demonstrating that it is possible. Learning is making it possible for
yourself.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Pilgrimage
― Paulo Coelho, The Pilgrimage
“When
you wish to instruct, be brief; that men's [children's] minds take in quickly
what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is
unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero
― Marcus Tullius Cicero
“You can't really teach a kid anything: you
can only show him the way and motivate him to learn it himself.”
― Dave Cullen, Columbine
― Dave Cullen, Columbine
“What
we instill in our children will be the foundation upon which they build their
future.”
― Steve Maraboli
― Steve Maraboli
“I'm
more interested in arousing enthusiasm in kids than in teaching the facts. The
facts may change, but that enthusiasm for exploring the world will remain with
them the rest of their lives.”
― Seymour Simon
― Seymour Simon
“Not
fault of teaching spider if little spider pay more attention to catching fly
than doing lesson.”
― Anne Bishop, Queen of the Darkness
― Anne Bishop, Queen of the Darkness
“In
a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of
us would have to settle for something else.”
― Lee Iacocca
― Lee Iacocca
Teaching and Learning Quotes
There is no teaching until the pupil is brought into the same state or principle in which you are; a transfusion takes place; he is you, and you are he; then is a teaching; and by no unfriendly chance or bad company can he ever lose the benefit.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Learning without thinking is labor lost; thinking without
learning is dangerous.
~ Chinese proverb.
~ Chinese proverb.
Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
B F Skinner
A positive learning climate in a school for young children is a composite of many things. It is an attitude that respects children. It is a place where children receive guidance and encouragement from the responsible adults around them. It is an environment where children can experiment and try out new ideas without fear or failure. It is an atmosphere that builds children’s self-confidence so they dare to take risks. It is an environment that nurtures a love of learning.
~Carol B. Hillman
Learning starts with failure; the first failure is the beginning of education.
~John Hersey
“Our task, regarding creativity, is to help children climb their own mountains, as high as possible. No one can do more.”
Loris Malaguzzi
“A thousand teachers, a thousand methods.”
Chinese proverb
Chinese proverb
“No one should teach who is not in love with teaching.”
Margaret E. Sangster
Margaret E. Sangster
“Education costs money, but then so does ignorance.”
Claus, Sir Morsen
“Education is improving the lives of others and for leaving your community
and world better than you found it.”
Marian Wright Edelman
“Learning is ever in the freshness of its youth, even for the old.”
Aeschylus
The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,
And all the sweet serenity of books.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Learning is like rowing upstream: not to advance is to drop back.”
Chinese Proverb
“Learning is a treasure which accompanies its owner everywhere.”
Chinese Proverb
"The best learners... often make the worst teachers. They are, in a very real sense, perceptually challenged. They cannot imagine what it must be like to struggle to learn something that comes so naturally to them."
Stephen Brookfield
"We do not teach math, history, science, or grammar - we teach students." Anonymous
“Creatures whose main spring is curiosity will enjoy the accumulating of fact, far more than the pausing at times to reflect on those facts." Clarence Day
"One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary warm material, but warmth is a vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.
Carl Jung
"Try to be one of the people on whom nothing is lost!"
Henry James,
"Education is about the only thing lying around loose in the world, and it's about the only thing a fellow can have as much of as he's willing to haul away."
George Horace Latimer,
“Learning is a kind of natural food for the mind.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero,
“Early education can only promise to help make the third and fourth and fifth years of life good ones. It cannot insure without fail that any tomorrow will be successful. Nothing “fixes” a child for life, no matter what happens next. But exciting, pleasing early experiences are seldom sloughed off. They go with the child, on into first grade, on into the child’s long life ahead. “
James L. Hymes, Jr.
“We are all adult learners. Most of us have learned a good deal more out of school than in it. We have learned from our families, our work, our friends. We have learned from problems resolved and tasks achieved but also from mistakes confronted and illusions unmasked. . . . Some of what we have learned is trivial: some has changed our lives forever.”
Laurent A. Daloz
“If a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in his office at one time, all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn't want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or dentist, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher's job.”
Donald D. Quinn
"It is greater work to educate a child, in the true and larger sense of the world, than to rule a state"
William Ellery Channing
"What a teacher is, is more important than what he teaches"
Karl Menninger
"As with all great teachers, his curriculum was an insignificant part of what he communicated. From him you didn't learn a subject, but a life...Tolerance and justice, fearlessness and pride, reverence and pity, are learned in a course on long division if the teacher has those qualities..."
William Alexander Percy
"People may talk about intellectual teaching, but what we principally want is the moral teaching."
Thomas Henry Huxley,
"The most important part of teaching = to teach what it is to know."
Simone Weil,
"The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards; and curiosity itself can be vivid and wholesome only in proportion as the mind is contended and happy."
Anatole France,
“For good teaching rests neither in accumulating a shelfful of knowledge nor in developing a repertoire of skills. In the end, good teaching lies in a willingness to attend and care for what happens in our students, ourselves, and the space between us. Good teaching is a certain kind of stance, I think. It is a stance of receptivity, of attunement, of listening.”
Laurent A. Daloz
“May my teaching drop like the rain, my speech condense like the dew; like gentle rain on grass, like showers on new growth.”
Bible: Hebrew, Deuteronomy 32:2
“Learning and teaching should not stand on opposite banks and just watch the river flow by; instead, they should embark together on a journey down the water. Through an active, reciprocal exchange, teaching can strengthen learning how to learn.”
Loris Malaguzzi