quotations about teaching
Teaching is a really special form of cooperative activity. Aristotle says that teaching only happens when the student is learning. That's because the teaching and learning happen in the same place, in the student, in the mind of another person.
AGNES CALLARD
"2017 Quantrell and Graduate Teaching Awards", UChicago News, June 5, 2017
Who dares to teach must never cease to learn.
JOHN COTTON DANA
New York Times Book Review, March 5, 1967
Be versed in ancient lore, and familiarize yourself with the modern; then may you become teachers.
CONFUCIUS
The Wisdom of Confucius
Deciding to teach is an indication you are interested in joining an engaging, worthwhile, and yet challenging profession. It is important to recognize that schools are a microcosm of society. Just as society has changed (i.e., technological advancements) and become more diverse, so too have schools, and they may be quite different from what you recall as a student.
GLADIS KERSAINT & DENISSE R. THOMPSON
"Advice on Making a Mid-Career Change to Teaching", Education Week, June 13, 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
No man can instruct more than half-a-dozen students at once. The whole problem of education is one of its cost in money.
HENRY ADAMS
The Education of Henry Adams
A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.
HENRY ADAMS
The Education of Henry Adams
Any teacher that can be replaced by a machine should be!
ARTHUR C. CLARKE
Electronic Tutors
O ye! who teach the ingenious youth of nations,
Holland, France, England, Germany or Spain,
I pray ye flog them upon all occasions,
It mends their morals, never mind the pain.
LORD BYRON
Don Juan
Arrogance, pedantry, and dogmatism ... the occupational diseases of those who spend their lives directing the intellects of the young.
HENRY S. CANBY
Alma Mater
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
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
Life is amazing: and the teacher had better prepare himself to be a medium for that amazement.
EDWARD BLISHEN
Donkey Work
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
The world of knowledge takes a crazy turn
When teachers themselves are taught to learn.
BERTOLT BRECHT
Life of Galileo
No man is so learned but he may be taught; neither is any one so illiterate but he may teach.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
Teaching is one of the noblest of professions. It requires an adequate preparation and training, patience, devotion, and a deep sense of responsibility. Those who mold the human mind have wrought not for time, but for eternity.
CALVIN COOLIDGE
speech, July 4, 1924
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
I learned that religious/spiritual teaching is a very powerful means of biased indoctrination that uses guilt and fear to squelch freedom of thought and open honest inquiry.
CARTER WARDEN
"Categorically Shedding Decades of Clergy Guilt", Patheos, June 15, 2017
We love the precepts for the teacher's sake.
GEORGE FARQUHAR
The Constant Couple