Educators

"Education is unfolding the wings of head and heart together. A true teacher pushes the students out of the nest to strengthen the wings."

"What they did was sell invisible things. And after they’d sold what they had, they still had it. They sold what everyone needed but often didn’t want. They sold the key to the universe to people who didn’t even know it was locked."

"I have found that corrections done in a firm and fair manner with an explanation are appreciated, not resented. Always try to turn the encounter into a mutually positive learning experience. These truths are known to every good classroom teacher, every good coach, every good violin teacher, and every good construction foreman. Mistakes that have become deeply rooted habits- in a batter's stance, in a violinist's fingering, in a child's table manners, in a roofer's roofing skills- drive teachers, coaches, foremen, and parents nuts. You have to catch them all early, and properly train the correct actions, skills, and behaviors. Leaders who do not have the guts to immediately correct minor errors or shortcomings cannot be counted on to have the guts to deal with the big things."

"To dazzle let the vain design, To raise the thought and touch the heart, be thine!"

"Men must be taught as if you taught them not, And things unknown propos'd as things forgot."

"What's all the noisy jargon of the schools?"

"Each of these private teachers who work for pay ... inculcates nothing else than these opinions of the multitude which they opine when they are assembled and calls this knowledge wisdom."

"In a democratic state the schoolmaster is afraid of his pupils and flatters them, and the pupils despise both schoolmaster and pedagogues. The young expect the same treatment as the old, and contradict them and quarrel with them. In fact, seniors have to flatter their juniors, in order not to be thought morose old dotards."

"We need organizers and builders of a new society, we need warriors for a new way of life. Self-government is our most effective educational instrument for producing such organizers, builders, and warriors."

"Because salaries of academics are modest in comparison to those of the more successful members of corporate, legal, and medical lodges, teachers lead sane monetary lives. They plan and budget and rarely snap at the hook of debt camouflaged by creative accounting. Finances make teachers resourceful, and they ferret about finding ways to travel without demolishing their savings. Decades ago, I jettisoned pride, realizing that it was an encumbering, unaffordable luxury. I learned how to write clever, cajoling letters, offering to barter publicity or lectures for complimentary travel."

"Since human beings are highly adaptable it may be possible for an individual with any sort of competence to learn, in the end, according to any teaching strategy. But the experiments show, very clearly indeed, that the rate, quality and durability of learning is crucially dependent upon whether or not the teaching strategy is of a sort that suits the individual"

"What constitutes the teacher is the passion to make scholars, and again and again it happens that the great scholar has no such passion whatever."

"What teaching has done for me the most as a person is it's trained me to be a great listener."

"Don't tell us that the only way to teach a child is to spend too much of a year preparing him to fill out a few bubbles on a standardized test; we know that's not true."

"A good teacher does not draw out; he gives out, and what he gives out is love. And by love I mean approval, or if you like, friendliness, good nature. The good teacher not only understands the child: he approves of the child."

"Ethics could teach us only those purposes and ideals. If the teachers seeks insight into the means by which the aim can be reached, into the facts by which the child can be molded, his way must lead from ethics to psychology. (...) Water flows downhill, anyhow, but to bring the water uphill hydraulic forces are indeed necessary. To overcome nature and instead to prepare for a life of ideals, to inhibit personal desires and instead to learn to serve the higher purposes indeed demands most serious and most systematic efforts. It is the teachers' task to make these efforts with all his best knowledge of mind and body, of social and of cultural values."

"For the life of me I cannot fathom why we expect so much from teachers and provide them so little in return. In 1940, the average pay of a male teacher was actually 3.6 percent more than what other college-educated men earned. Today it is 60 percent lower. Women teachers now earn 16 percent less than other college-educated women. This bewilders me. [...] There was no Plato without Socrates, and no John Coltrane without Miles Davis."

"Charles Xavier: A new generation of mutants is emerging, that much is certain. They will be called freaks. Genetic monstrosities. [...] But they are emerging in the inner cities, in the suburbs, in the deserts and the jungles. And when they emerge, they will need teachers, people who can help them overcome their anger and show them how to use their strange gifts responsibly. They will need us."

""To make oneself interesting artificially," that is, interesting to those who have no interest in us, is indeed a very difficult task; and to arrest the attention hour after hour, and year after year, not of one, but of a multitude of persons who have nothing in common with us, not even years, is indeed a superhuman undertaking. Yet this is the task of the teacher, or, as he would say, his "art": to make this assembly of children whom he has reduced to immobility by discipline follow him with their minds, understand what he says, and learn; an internal action, which he cannot govern, as he governs the position of their bodies, but which he must win by making himself interesting, and by maintaining this interest."

"The schoolmaster is the person who builds up the intelligence of the pupil; the intelligence of the pupil increases in direct proportion to the efforts of the teacher; in other words, he knows just what the master has made him know and understands neither more nor less than the master has made him understand. When an inspector visits a school and questions the pupils he turns to the master, and if he is satisfied says: "Well done, teacher!" For the result is indubitably the work of the master; the discipline by which he has fixed the attention of his pupils, even to the psychical mechanism which has guided him in his teaching, all is due to him. God enters the school as a symbol in the crucifix, but the creator is the teacher."

"The very corner-stone of an education intended to form great minds, must be the recognition of the principle, that the object is to call forth the greatest possible quantity of intellectual power, and to inspire the intensest love of truth: and this without a particle of regard to the results to which the exercise of that power may lead, even though it should conduct the pupil to opinions diametrically opposite to those of his teachers. We say this, not because we think opinions unimportant, but because of the immense importance which we attach to them; for in proportion to the degree of intellectual power and love of truth which we succeed in creating, is the certainty that (whatever may happen in any one particular instance) in the aggregate of instances true opinions will be the result; and intellectual power and practical love of truth are alike impossible where the reasoner is shown his conclusions, and informed beforehand that he is expected to arrive at them."

"School teachers, taking them by and large, are probably the most ignorant and stupid class of men in the whole group of mental workers."

"This fallacy [appeal to authority] is not in itself an error; it is impossible to learn much in today's world without letting somebody else crunch the numbers and offer us explanations. And teachers are sources of necessary information. But how we choose our "authorities" and place a value on such information, is just another skill rarely taught in our education systems. It's little wonder that to most folk, sound bites and talking heads are enough to count as experts. […] Teaching is reinforcing the appeal to authority, where anybody who seems more intelligent than you must ultimately be right. […] We educators must simply role-model critical thinking. […] Educators themselves have to be prepared to show that "evidence" and "answers" are two separate things by firmly believing that, themselves."

"Docemus Docere"

"It is the capitalist class that pays you, that feeds you, that puts the very clothes on your backs that you are wearing tonight. And in return you preach to your employers the brands of metaphysics that are especially acceptable to them; and the especially acceptable brands are acceptable because they do not menace the established order of society. ... You are sincere. You preach what you believe. There lies your strength and your value—to the capitalist class. But should you change your belief to something that menaces the established order, your preaching would be unacceptable to your employers, and you would be discharged. ... Your hands are soft with the work others have performed for you. Your stomachs are round with the plenitude of eating. ... And your minds are filled with doctrines that are buttresses of the established order. You are as much mercenaries (sincere mercenaries, I grant) as were the men of the Swiss Guard."

"If you ask most teachers of science what their main goal is, they will probably say: for my students to understand the basic concepts of physics, chemistry, biology, or whatever other field is being studied. The critical words here are ‘understand’ and ‘concept’, and both of these terms assume a fundamentally psychological approach to learning... If we see the goals of science education in terms of what students will be able to do, and how they will be able to make sense of the world, rather than in terms of our speculations about what may be going on in their brains, then we need to see scientific learning as the acquisition of cultural tools and practices, as learning to participate in very specific and often specialized forms of human activity"

"If you are truly serious about preparing your child for the future, don't teach him to subtract - teach him to deduct."

"When you teach, it stimulates you; you're forced to crystallize your own thinking...you're forced to formalize your own theories so that you may communicate them to the students... you go back to your studio and think about this again."

"A teacher comes, they say, when you are ready. And if you ignore its presence, it will speak to you more loudly. But you have to be quiet to hear."

"The land is the real teacher. All we need as students is mindfulness."

"People have forgotten that plants were once regarded as our oldest teachers"

"The vices of our teachers are not to be imitated, their virtues are."

"My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment. For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body."

"The Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Teach­ers (AFT), the sec­ond largest teach­ers’ union in the coun­try, passed a res­o­lu­tion in sup­port of the Green New Deal at its bien­ni­al con­ven­tion at the end of July."

"A boor cannot be sin-fearing, an ignoramus cannot be pious, a bashful one cannot learn, a short-tempered person cannot teach, nor does anyone who does much business grow wise."

"Each time [students] came to his office, they would confide to him whatever terror, longing, humiliation, or desperate desire they possessed, then walk out of the tutorial and forget that he existed, until next time. He was perpetually amazed and a little impressed by this entitlement. Even the most considerate of them were innocent of the fact that anything they took from him had been, and had to be, extracted from another part of his life: Raine or his girlfriend, Mae, his delayed monograph, his untidy home, his tired body. He had given to them freely—Mae believed excessively—because he cared for them. And now he was ashamed of himself, too, because he was distraught that they were leaving, though he wanted them to go."

"Daily contact with some teachers is itself all-sided ethical education for the child without a spoken precept. Here, too, the real advantage of male over female teachers, especially for boys, is seen in their superior physical strength, which often, if highly estimated, gives real dignity and commands real respect, and especially in the unquestionably greater uniformity of their moods and their discipline."

"Full well they laughed, with counterfeited glee, At all his jokes, for many a joke had he: Full well the busy whisper, circling round, Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd."

"Not to keep from error, is the duty of the educator of men, but to guide the erring one, even to let him swill his error out of full cups — that is the wisdom of teachers. Whoever merely tastes of his error, will keep house with it for a long time, … but whoever drains it completely will have to get to know it."

"When I first began teaching, I visited with a former teacher who I respected greatly. I asked him for some advice. He responded without hesitation, "A good teacher must love his students." "Love?" I queried. "Yes, love. When you come to care about each student as your very own child, then you'll become a great teacher.""

"Good teachers are enthusiastic. The number one quality of a good teacher is enthusiasm. Students often complain that their teacher is boring. Can you recall sitting in a class where the teacher was not enthusiastic, to say the least, about his or her work? Can you recall what a difference an enthusiastic teacher made? What about the same for teachers you've known? Enthusiasm demonstrates passion for one's work. When one is passionate one usually enjoys what he or she is doing and one usually succeeds. Moreover, such enthusiasm is inspiring. Consider some of the world's great leaders. I think you'll agree that two of the most important qualities they possess are energy and optimism. They inspire others to action."

"[T]eachers have to be involved in the community and connected with parents and others who shape the lives of young people. They have to be involved with a whole range of people. They have to bring people together. They have to make sure that students in some way find that the work that they’re doing has something to do with their lives and matters."

"Outside of that you have teachers who are increasingly deskilled through models of curricula that claim that objective assessments are all that matters, and that teachers just have to implement the assessments. So teachers are completely losing control over the conditions of their labor, they’re being abused, they’re not being paid properly, they’re losing their benefits, and their unions are being disseminated. This is a full-fledged attack. It’s an attack on one of the most important foundations of a democracy, it’s an attack on teachers, and it’s an attack on young people — particularly those who are marginalized by virtue of class, race, and ethnicity."

"The function of the teacher, as we have just defined it, is naturally directed toward a twofold object, interior and exterior, depending upon whether it is applied to the truth the teacher meditates upon and contemplates within himself or to the listeners whom he is teaching."

"The process of education has naturally enough been the basis of hope for the perdurance of our democracy on the part of all our great leaders, from Thomas Jefferson onwards. To regard teachers—in our entire educational system, from the primary grades to the university—as the priests of our democracy is therefore not to indulge in hyperbole. It is the special task of teachers to foster those habits of open-mindedness and critical inquiry which alone make for responsible citizens, who, in turn, make possible an enlightened and effective public opinion. Teachers must fulfill their function by precept and practice, by the very atmosphere which they generate; they must be exemplars of open-mindedness and free inquiry. They cannot carry out their noble task if the conditions for the practice of a responsible and critical mind are denied to them."

"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 contented and happy."

"D'ordinaire, ceux qui gouvernent les enfants ne leur pardonnent rien, et se pardonnent tout à eux-mêmes."

"Such an office demands an upright and incorruptible man, who would take delight in his pious work even without any pay, while a high salary and a position of dignity would attract the meanest characters."

"To be a schoolmaster is next to being a king. Do you reckon it a mean employment to imbue the minds of your fellow-citizens in their earliest years with the best Letters and with the love of Christ, and to return them to their country honest and virtuous men? In the opinion of fools it is a humble task, but in fact it is the noblest of occupations."

"It turns out that teaching is one of those things like raising a kid or working out—sometimes amazing, often difficult and painful, but, in hindsight, amazing."