Bel Kaufman Quotes & Sayings

Best marks go to cheaters and memorizers. Marks depend on memorizing and not on real knowledge. When you cram into your head for a test you may get a high mark but forget it the next day. That's not an education. I suggest just Good and Bad at the end of the term on report cards. Or maybe nothing.
Frank Allen — Bel Kaufman

How can you wish on a turkey wishbone with a man who is capable of correcting a love letter? — Bel Kaufman

And that's it; that's why I want to teach; that's the one and only compensation: to make a permanent difference in the life of a child. — Bel Kaufman

Teachers try to make us feel lower than themselves, maybe because this is because they feel lower than outside people. One teacher told me to get out of the room and never come back, which I did. — Bel Kaufman

A teacher is frequently the only adult in the pupil's environment who treats him with respect. — Bel Kaufman

One of my students had written wistfully of a dream-school that would have windows with trees in them. — Bel Kaufman

Time collapses and expands like an erratic accordion ... — Bel Kaufman

Education is not a product: mark, diploma, job, money-in that order; it is a process, a never-ending one. — Bel Kaufman

I so enjoy being old because for the first time I don't have to do anything-work, teach, study. I feel very good about myself-and at my age I can say no to anything now if I don't want to do it. What a liberating word. — Bel Kaufman

To the outside world, of course, this job is a cinch: 9 to 3, five days a week, two months' summer vacation with pay, all legal holidays, prestige and respect. My mother, for example, has the pleasant notion that my day consists of nodding graciously to the rustle of starched curtsies and a chorus of respectful voices bidding me good morning. — Bel Kaufman

When giving comes directly from the heart, it can never disappoint or embarrass. — Bel Kaufman

I am writing this during my lunch period, because I need to reach towards the outside world of sanity, because I am overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the clerical work still to be done, and because at this hour of the morning normal ladies are still sleeping. — Bel Kaufman

Laughter keeps you healthy. You can survive by seeing the humor in everything. Thumb your nose at sadness; turn the tables on tragedy. You can't laugh and be angry, you can't laugh and feel sad, you can't laugh and feel envious. — Bel Kaufman

Dear Bea - I've been wading through a pile of "Due before 3" mimeos - but now at last I know what to do with them: into the wastebasket! I'm also hep to the jargon. I know that "illustrative material" means magazine covers, "enriched curriculum" means teaching "who and whom," and that "All evaluation of students should be predicated upon initial goals and grade level expectations" means if a kid shows up, pass him. Right? — Bel Kaufman

Never mind the cream; it will always rise to the top. It's the skim milk that needs good teachers. — Bel Kaufman

Love is the ultimate giving, an expression of one's best self. — Bel Kaufman

Education can't make us all leaders, but it can teach us which leader to follow. — Bel Kaufman

If a teacher wants to know something why doesn't she look it up herself instead of making we students do it? We benefit ourselves more by listening to her, after all she's the teacher! — Bel Kaufman

I like the word OLD. Not senior, that's for proms. Older? Older than whom? 'Old' is honorable and ripe — Bel Kaufman

To the young, cliches seem freshly minted. — Bel Kaufman

Good teachers, like Tolstoy's happy families, are alike everywhere. — Bel Kaufman

I feel no different than I felt at 99, 98 or 97. Just because you live a long time, you get all this attention. Just because you survived? Of course, I survived a lot. — Bel Kaufman

The preciousness of every moment is emphasized with every tick of the clock. Isn't it a magnificent day today? — Bel Kaufman

Learning is a process of mutual discovery for teacher and pupil. Keep an open mind to their unexpected responses. — Bel Kaufman

Mythology is studied in the school system because most of us come from it. — Bel Kaufman

What makes you think you're so special? Just because you're a teacher? What he was really saying was: You are so special. You are my teacher. Then teach me, help me, Hey, Teach, I'm lost - which way do I go? I'm tired of going up the down staircase. — Bel Kaufman

The heart has its reasons; it's the mind that's suspect. — Bel Kaufman

The clerical work is par for the course. "Keep on file in numerical order" means throw in wastebasket. You'll soon learn the language. "Let it be a challenge to you" means you're stuck with it; "interpersonal relationships" is a fight between kids; "ancillary civic agencies for supportive discipline" means call the cops; "Language Arts Dept." is the English office; "literature based on child's reading level and experiential background" means that's all they've got in the Book Room; "non-academic-minded" is a delinquent; and "It has come to my attention" means you're in trouble. — Bel Kaufman

But if there is such a thing as social commitment in literature, I think it must manifest itself in a reader's awareness of the human condition, in the writer's touching some common nerve ending. I think this kind of social commitment, like a lady's slip, should be there but it must not show. — Bel Kaufman

To quote a noted Jewish humorist, Sholom Aleichem: "First comes health. You can always hang yourself later." As — Bel Kaufman

I had used my sense of humor; I had called it proportion, perspective. But perspective is distance. — Bel Kaufman

I'll never retire as long as I live - that's like retiring from life! I'll never stop writing, teaching, lecturing. If you're in good health, living is exciting on its own. — Bel Kaufman

People ate bread made of the shells of peas because there was no flour. — Bel Kaufman

I want to point the way to something that should forever lure them, when the TV set is broken and the movie is over and the school bell has rung for the last time. — Bel Kaufman

Children are the true connoisseurs. What's precious to them has no price, only value. — Bel Kaufman