quotations about teaching
The good pupils are often brilliant, and they keep you on your toes and take you to the limits of your knowledge. The worst pupils provide a unique insight into the criminal mind.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
interview, The Paris Review, The Paris Review
The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. He inspires self-distrust. He guides their eyes from himself to the spirit that quickens him. He will have no disciple.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
"The Teacher", Orphic Sayings
A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.
HENRY ADAMS
The Education of Henry Adams
A teacher who loves learning earns the right and the ability to help others learn.
RUTH BEECHICK
An Easy Start in Arithmetic
Only crazy people teach in heels. You're on your feet all day. Sometimes you have to chase a kid. It's true that heels sound really impressive on the linoleum when you're walking down the hall, but how are you ever going to sneak up on anybody?
CAPTAIN AWESOME
"6 Ways in Which Teaching Is Nothing Like the Movies", We Are Teachers, December 4, 2015
Reflecting on my past teaching mistakes has made me more reflective about who I am. Sure, part of teaching is a performance, pretending to be in a better mood than I am some days, being patient even when I face personal struggles. But the real work of teaching involves making the world, and myself, knowable to students.
BENJAMIN DOXTDATOR
"My First-Nations Identity Feels More Like An Absence", NPR, May 30, 2017
To know how to suggest is the great art of teaching. To attain it we must be able to guess what will interest; we must learn to read the childish soul as we might a piece of music, Then, by simply changing the key, we keep up the attraction and vary the song.
HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL
Journal Intime
We love the precepts for the teacher's sake.
GEORGE FARQUHAR
The Constant Couple
You know what's adorable about inspirational teacher movies? The way they grade papers. When Robin Williams sits down in front of a stack of papers in Dead Poets Society, they're all neatly arranged and he's staring intently at one, pen poised, ready to help guide one of those good-looking boys down the road to self-discovery before jotting down a score in his leather-bound grade book. Look, maybe I'm just doing it wrong. But my grade book is a dog-eared old Squibbs--which I had to buy myself, since the school doesn't give those out anymore--that is so overflowing with student work it's about to attain consciousness and try to take over the world.
CAPTAIN AWESOME
"6 Ways in Which Teaching Is Nothing Like the Movies", We Are Teachers, December 4, 2015
Arrogance, pedantry, and dogmatism ... the occupational diseases of those who spend their lives directing the intellects of the young.
HENRY S. CANBY
Alma Mater
It's the student who makes the teacher, not the other way around.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Angel's Game
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
What I've learned about teaching is to refer back to the root of that word, which is educo, which means "to pull from." Education does not mean jamming information into somebody's head. Rather, it's that ancient idea that all knowledge is within us; to teach is to help somebody pull it out of themselves.
ALAN ARKIN
Esquire, March 2007
A good teacher does not draw out; he gives out, and what he gives out is love.
A. S. NEILL
The Problem Teacher
A schoolmaster should have an atmosphere of awe, and walk wonderingly, as if he was amazed at being himself.
WALTER BAGEHOT
"Hartley Coleridge", Literary Studies
Any teacher that can be replaced by a machine should be!
ARTHUR C. CLARKE
Electronic Tutors
The teacher does not have to be, although he has to know: he is the mind imagining, not the executant.
WYNDHAM LEWIS
The Essential Wyndham Lewis
I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. It might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.
JOHN STEINBECK
"...like captured fireflies"
Life is amazing: and the teacher had better prepare himself to be a medium for that amazement.
EDWARD BLISHEN
Donkey Work
All I can say to teachers, both indigenous and non-indigenous, is this: Our children need to learn about one another and about the world, even when the world is a difficult place. We need creative, thoughtful and kind people who are willing to take risks to teach all our children. Please don't be afraid to engage them. They need you.
DANIELLE S. MCLAUGHLIN
"What Is Appropriate And What Is Cultural Appropriation?", Huffington Post Canada, May 23, 2017