Quotes & Sayings About Educators

Many leading educators and psychologists believe that it is the ability to ask good questions that characterizes both intelligence and creativity. — Madeline Levine

We all, parents, educators, community leaders, and every ... citizen, need to come together to find new ways to engage children with the natural environment. — Laura Bush

While standardized tests can certainly be useful for scientifically investigating the mind and brain, and can greatly inform educational interventions, there's no reason why educators or anyone else for that matter needs to compare the intelligence of one person to another based on a single dimension of human variation. — Scott Barry Kaufman

The removal of religion as history from our schoolbooks betrays the intellectual dishonesty of secular humanist educators and reveals their blind hostility to Christianity. — Tim LaHaye

Apparently almost anyone can do a better job of educating children than our so-called 'educators' in the public schools. Children who are home-schooled by their parents also score higher on tests than children educated in the public schools ... Successful education shows what is possible, whether in charter schools, private schools, military schools or home-schooling. The challenge is to provide more escape hatches from failing public schools, not only to help those students who escape, but also to force these institutions to get their act together before losing more students and jobs. — Thomas Sowell

E is for the EDUCATORS, the women who taught us well. — Lynne Cheney

I'm glad to take on the role of a domestic because many of your black leaders, your educators, your professionals came from domestic parents who made sacrifices to see that their children didn't go through what they did. — Esther Rolle

Apartheid education, rarely mentioned in the press or openly confronted even among once-progressive educators, is alive and well and rapidly increasing now in the United States. — Jonathan Kozol

Educators are spiritual beings - we are on earth to make a difference. — Holly Elissa Bruno

I can prove at any time that my education tried to make another person out of me than the one I became. It is for the harm, therefore, that my educators could have done me in accordance with their intentions that I reproach them; I demand from their hands the person I now am, and since they cannot give him to me, I make of my reproach and laughter a drumbeat sounding in the world beyond. — Franz Kafka

The great benefactors of individuals and of communities are the enlightened educators: the wise-teaching, mental and moral instructors and exemplars of our times. — Dorothea Dix

As an author, you go into the school, it gets written about in the paper. It sucks that your book was banned, but you almost benefit from it. The bummer is all of the incredible educators. Nobody is writing about them. They are on the frontlines still, to this day, fighting to reinstate those programs. — Matt De La Pena

The work of meaningful student involvement is not easy or instantly rewarding. It demands that the system of schooling change, and that the attitudes of students, educators, parents and community members change. — Adam Fletcher

Educators shouldn't be afraid of cliches. You know why? Because kids don't know most of them! They're a new audience. And they're inspired by cliches. — Randy Pausch

Churchmen are quick to defend religious freedom; lawyers were never so universally aroused as by President Roosevelt's Court bill; newspapers are most alert to civil liberties when there is a hint of press censorship in the air. And educators become perturbed at every effort to curb academic freedom. But too seldom do all of these become militant when ostensibly the rights of only one group are threatened. They do not always react to the truism that when the rights of any individual or group are chipped away, the freedom of all erodes. — Earl Warren

How many more years will our educators continue to lecture us on the evils of whipping children until they bring home high grades? Year after year we listen to these fellows tell us that it is not the grade that counts but the development of the child's personality. After the lecture they go back to all the best schools and reject our children because they have C averages. — Russell Baker

We will learn no matter what! Learning is as natural as rest or play. With or without books, inspiring trainers or classrooms, we will manage to learn. Educators can, however, make a difference in what people learn and how well they learn it. If we know why we are learning and if the reason fits our needs as we perceive them, we will learn quickly and deeply. — Malcolm Knowles

I keep thinking of the gifts of my own upbringing, which I once took for granted: I can read any book I choose and comprehend it. I can write a complete sentence and punctuate it correctly. If I need help, I can call on judges, attorneys, educators, ministers. I wonder what I would be like if I had grown up without such protections and supports. What cracks would have turned up in my character? — Helen Prejean

The Jesuits were good educators, exceptional teachers. In an era and in a society where freedom of speech was not held in high regard, of course, that the discourse be focused on what they were teaching, but we were able to go beyond this framework without incurring too great a risk. — Pierre Trudeau

A DIFFERENT KIND OF CHECKLIST If we want our kids to have a shot at making it in the world as eighteen-year-olds, without the umbilical cord of the cell phone being their go-to solution in all manner of things, they're going to need a set of basic life skills. Based upon my observations as dean, and the advice of parents and educators around the country, here are some examples of practical things they'll need to know how to do before they go to college - and here are the crutches that are currently hindering them from standing up on their own two feet: 1. An eighteen-year-old must be able to talk to strangers - faculty, deans, advisers, landlords, store clerks, human resource managers, coworkers, bank tellers, health care providers, bus drivers, mechanics - in the real world. — Julie Lythcott-Haims

Sometimes a book is better than it ever had a right to be because of the history the reader brings to the reading and because of the methods educators use to bring a particular story alive. — Chris Crutcher

Restoring prayer ... will scarcely at this date solve the grievous public school problem. Public schools are expensive and massive centers for cultural and ideological brainwashing, at which they are unfortunately far more effective than in teaching the 3 R's or in keeping simple order within the schools. Any plan to begin dismantling the public school monstrosity is met with effective opposition by the teachers' and educators' unions. Truly radical change is needed to shift education from public to unregulated private schooling, religious and secular, as well as home schooling by parents. — Murray Rothbard

Rule #1: No cut or compromise should be suggested by ANY member of the community. This includes the music coalition, music educators, and the music supervisor.
Suggest a cut or compromise, and you become responsible for the decision. — John Benham

Parents and educators need to establish a culture in which security and clarity of expectations are balanced with the encouragement of playfulness, inquisitiveness and self reliance. — Guy Claxton

In America, educators punish those who actually think for themselves. There is only acceptance for popular opinion. — Bryant H. McGill

Moreover, even at elite colleges, the personnel attracted to college admissions are seldom themselves part of the intellectual elite. Yet their job is to select students unlike themselves, to be taught by professors unlike themselves, for careers unlike theirs. It can hardly be surprising that admissions personnel are drawn toward non-intellectual criteria and toward ideas not unlike the notion of judging "the whole person," as found among educators at the pre-college level. Over the years, all sorts of criteria from popular psychology and sociological speculation have assumed increasing weight visa-vis such standard intellectual criteria as academic records and test scores. The — Thomas Sowell

But a great number of educators spoke of "personal responsibility" in a country authored and sustained by a criminal irresponsibility. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

My experiences as a Montessori teacher have led me to realize that our goal as educators is not to impart facts to children as though they were empty vessels to be filled, but to open their eyes so they can exclaim joyfully, "Wow, look at what I am becoming! I've got to know more!" (from Walking in Wonder) — Elizabeth White

More time on paperwork means less time spent with students or preparing lessons for students. It is as simple as that. The numerous reforms in the bill will go a long way to free our time of special educators. — Christopher Bond

That the idea of God represents the conscience, the internalized admonitions and threats from parents and educators, is a well-known fact. What is less well known is the fact that, from an energy point of view, the belief in and the fear of God are sexual excitations which have changed their content and goal. The religious feeling, then, is the same as sexual feeling, except that it is attached to mystical, psychic contents. This explains the return of the sexual element in so many ascetic experiences, such as the nun's delusion that she is the bride of Christ. Such experiences rarely reach the stage of genital consciousness and thus are apt to take place in other sexual channels, such as masochistic martyrdom. — Wilhelm Reich

When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can't help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup. — Thomas Sowell

We educators stand at a special point in time — Robert J. Marzano

We didn't set out to be educators or even scientists, and we don't purport that what we do is real science but we're demonstrating a methodology by which one can engage and satisfy your curiosity. — Adam Savage

Roughly two-thirds of educators wholeheartedly reject the new Common Core standards, or have reservations about them, and it would be just as accurate as the way the NEA wrote it. — Glenn Beck

Educators need to know what happens in the world of the children with whom they work. They need to know the universe of their dreams, the language with which they skillfully defend themselves from the aggressiveness of their world, what they know independently of the school, and how they know it. — Paulo Freire

Woman, above all other educators, educates humanly. Man is the brain, but woman is the heart, of humanity. — Samuel Smiles

I am dedicating the majority of my wealth to improving education. It is the key to the survival of the human race. We have to plan for our collective future
and the first step begins with the social, emotional, and intellectual tools we provide to our children. As humans, our greatest tool for survival is our ability to think and to adapt - as educators, storytellers, and communicators our responsibility is to continue to do so. — George Lucas

Thomas Jefferson once said that all men are created equal ( ... ). There is a tendency ( ... ) for certain people to use this phrase out of context, to satisfy all conditions. The most ridiculous example I can think of is that the people who run public education promote the stupid and idle along with the industrious-because all men are created equal, educators will gravely tell you, the children left behind suffer terrible feelings of inferiority. We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe-some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they're born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cakes than others-some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of most men. — Harper Lee

YOU HAVE KILLED
YOU HAVE STOLEN
YOU HAVE DESTROYED.
DEVOURER OF LIVES
DEVOURER OF SOULS
YOU ARE DEFEATED!

ROAR O LION OF JUDAH
PROCLAIM YOUR VICTORY!

CHILDREN OF ADAM BEHOLD...
BEHOLD THY SALVATION.
FOR GREAT IS THE DAY OF THE LORD.

TURN AND FOLLOW THE CHILD
AS LION LIES WITH LAMB.

O SWORD BE A PLOUGH
O SPEAR BE A PRUNING HOOK
"EDUCATORS" SILENCE!
WE SHALL LEARN WAR NO MORE. — David Holdsworth

Even the best educational computer programs and games, devised with the help of the best educators, contain a tiny fraction of the outcomes of a single child equipped with a crayon and paper. A child's limitless imagination can only do what the computer allows them to, and no more. The best toys, by contrast, are really 10 percent toy and 90 percent child: paint, cardboard, sand. The kid's brain does the heavy lifting, and in the process it learns. — David Sax

To prevent discussion of any other explanations of human origins is hardly what I would expect from open-minded educators. — Tony Campolo

I don't think that I need to tell you how important to the outcome of that race is the education legislation that is now before the Congress. I hope that it is important enough that most of you have studied it in detail. I hope that you understand that it represents the very best thinking that the leading educators of this country can produce. — Lyndon B. Johnson

Without there being some national strategy, it is difficult for educators to know what kinds of engineers or technicians to produce and for potential students to know what professions to study for. — Ha-Joon Chang

The genius of guys like Lincoln and Reagan and FDR - the great communicator leaders - is that they're actually educators, so they understand when they use a phrase that they have to explain it, because, by definition, you won't understand it or they wouldn't need to be using it. — Newt Gingrich

Educators must resist the quest for certainty. If there were certainty there would be no scientific advancement. So it is with morals and patriotism. — John Goodlad

In spite of the general agreement by professional educators, the public, and legislative bodies that the health and growth of teachers are basic to the health of schools, existing staff development is crammed into a tiny space of money and time. — Bruce R. Joyce

I think it is time we learned the lesson of our century: that the progress of the human spirit must keep pace with technological and scientific progress, or that spirit will die. It is incumbent on our educators to remember this; and music is at the top of the spiritual must list. When the study of the arts leads to the adoration of the formula (heaven forbid), we shall be lost. But as long as we insist on maintaining artistic vitality, we are able to hope in man — Leonard Bernstein

From Binet, the idea of measuring imagination with inkblots spread to a string of American intelligence-testing pioneers and educators - Dearborn, Sharp, Whipple, Kirkpatrick. It reached Russia as well, where a psychology professor named Fyodor Rybakov, unaware of the Americans' work, included a series of eight blots in his Atlas of the Experimental-Psychology Study of Personality (1910). It was an American, Guy Montrose Whipple, who called his version an "ink-blot test" in his Manual of Mental and Physical Tests (also 1910) - this is why the Rorschach cards would come to be called "inkblots" when American psychologists took them — Damion Searls

When you were growing up, your mom and dad told you to look both ways before crossing the street or not to get into a car with a stranger. It's the same with the Internet. We have a big responsibility and a huge role in bringing all the stakeholders to the table - users, parents, educators, law enforcement, government organisations. — Chris DeWolfe

If educators were really understanding of that, they'd say, "You know what? Forget about bilingual, we're going to do multilingual education." So children are ready for the new millennium. We're way behind compared to countries in Europe. If we were multilingual, imagine how much you would learn about your own culture, about the sensibilities of what's important in your own culture. — Sandra Cisneros

Now the line is: Forget the classics, concentrate on an education for the 21st century! Which apparently means knowing how to operate electronic devices and figure out a spreadsheet. That's not education, it's vocational training. What once were means seem to have become ends in education. And our more with-it "educators" shift with every passing wind, clutching at the latest gimmick the way drowning men do at straws. — Paul Greenberg

Education as the exercise of domination stimulates the credulity of students, with the ideological intent (often not perceived by educators) of indoctrinating them to adapt to the world of oppression. — Anonymous

Educators remind us that what counts in a classroom is not what the teacher teaches; it's what the learner learns. — Alfie Kohn

It must be frustrating for decent parents to watch their children fall under the influence of radical educators, and sometimes make foolish decisions based on the predominant cultures in their schools. But no one should be surprised it happens - far too many educators are moral relativists who reject the notion of absolute right or wrong. — Glenn Beck

This is a very challenging moment for educators. Our children are headed for a much more networked existence, one that allows for learning to occur 24, 7, 365, one that renders physical space much less important for learning, one that will challenge the relevance of classrooms as currently envisioned, and one that challenges our roles as teachers and adult learners. — Will Richardson

Policy makers and politicians want more STEM; educators want more STEAM. Both, in ways that are eerily similar, are engaging in social engineering to support an ideology. At the macro-level, in both worlds, it's all about teaching a point of view, rather than teaching students to learn. We seem hell bent on an arbitrarily linear approach to engineering a "useful" or job-securing education, from which we continue to get mixed results. — Henry Doss

Every good educator knows that true teaching is to teach kids how to ask the right questions. — Utah Phillips

The primary obligation of educators is to assist in the realization of each student's full humanity. — Mara Sapon-Shevin

Women hold up more than half the sky and represent much of the world's unrealized potential. They are the educators. They raise the children. They hold families together and increasingly drive economies. They are natural leaders. We need their full engagement ... in government, business and civil society. — Ban Ki-moon

What radical constructivism may suggest to educators is this: the art of teaching has little to do with the traffic of knowledge, its fundamental purpose must be to foster the art of learning. — Ernst Von Glasersfeld

Indeed art is fundamental : to science, mathematics and to language. Unfortunately theorists, educators, parents and administrators have not fully understood its importance, relegating it to a secondary role, or that of an add on. — John A. Hiigli

Educators best serve students by helping them be more self-reflective. The only way any of us can improve - as Coach Graham taught me - is if we develop a real ability to assess ourselves. If we can't accurately do that, how can we tell if we're getting better or worse? — Randy Pausch

God put the wiggle in children and our job as parent-educators is to work with it, not take it out of them. — Pamela Read Von Gohren

The dilemma I was faced with was one every parent faces sooner or later: you want to defend your child, of course; you stand up for your child, but you mustn't do it all too vehemently, and above all not too eloquently - you mustn't drive anyone into a corner. The educators, the teachers, will let you have your say, but afterwards they'll take revenge on your child. You may come up with better arguments - it's not too hard to come up with better arguments than the educators, the teachers - but in the end, your child to going to pay for it. Their frustration at being shown up is something they'll take out on the student. — Herman Koch

Education aims at solving problems, but some educators are problems to be solved — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Parents deserve the peace of mind of knowing their children are in good hands. By investing in early childhood educators, we are supporting nurturing child care environments where children can thrive. — Kathleen Wynne

Testing is not a substitute for curriculum and instruction. Good education cannot be achieved by a strategy of testing children, shaming educators, and closing schools. — Diane Ravitch

The ultimate reason why the democratic impulse is so strong - why we resist such differences - is that the sinful heart resents the final discrimination made in the judgment of God when He separates the sheep from the goats. Spelling tests smack of the Last Day. The way we manage our schools shows how, deep down, we would really like to abolish the Great White Throne Judgment. This resistance extends from the democratic government school system down to the most trivial awards ceremony. And judging from our awards ceremonies, many modern educators do not want God to separate the sheep from the goats. They want Him to hand out participant ribbons to all. — Douglas Wilson

If there is any hope for changing the world for the better, from reducing family violence to reversing overpopulation and international conflict, economists, educators, and political leaders will need to base their interventions on a sound understanding of what people are really like, not on some fairy-tale version of what we would like them to be. — Douglas T. Kenrick

How you got your college education mattered most." And two experiences stood out from the poll of more than one million American workers, students, educators, and employers: Successful students had one or more teachers who were mentors and took a real interest in their aspirations, and they had an internship related to what they were learning in school. The most engaged employees, said Busteed, consistently attributed their success in the workplace to having had a professor or professors "who cared about them as a person," or having had "a mentor who encouraged their goals and dreams," or having had "an internship where they applied what they were learning." Those workers, he found, "were twice as likely to be engaged with their work and thriving in their overall well-being." There's a message in that bottle. — Thomas L. Friedman

As educators, we are only as effective as what we know. If we have no working knowledge of what students studied in previous years, how can we build on their learning? If we have no insight into the curriculum in later grades, how can we prepare learners for future classes? — Heidi Hayes Jacobs

Philosophers have long conceded, however, that every man has two educators: 'that which is given to him, and the other that which he gives himself. Of the two kinds the latter is by far the more desirable. Indeed all that is most worthy in man he must work out and conquer for himself. It is that which constitutes our real and best nourishment. What we are merely taught seldom nourishes the mind like that which we teach ourselves. — Carter G. Woodson

Month after month, Wizard Academy equips people who want to make a difference. This is why journalists and scientists and artists and educators and business owners and advertising professionals and ministers are attracted to our little school. — Roy H. Williams

Educators not only teach, but they also inspire students to learn, ignite the light of imaginations, shine the sense of perception, and define the path of life for future generations. — Debasish Mridha

From the standpoint of education, genius means essentially 'giving birth to the joy in learning.' I'd like to suggest that this is the central task of all educators. It is the genius of the student that is the driving force behind all learning. Before educators take on any of the other important issues in learning, they must first have a thorough understanding of what lies at the core of each student's intrinsic motivation to learn, and that motivation originates in each student's genius. — Thomas Armstrong

Educators have yet to realize how deeply the industrial system is dependent upon them. — John Kenneth Galbraith

When it comes to the education of our young, this privilege should only be given to those whose visions are solely in the uplifting benefit of the child. There is no room for the ego in the education of children! Children should not be looked after, nor educated, by those who have not made a sacrifice within their hearts, laying down their own personal agenda and dreams, for the total ascension of the child. Even if you are to educate the children simply sitting under a tree; if you have the vision and the heart of a sage, those children will grow to be mighty men and women under your watch! And even if you wine and dine the children, putting them up in a palace; if you do not have the vision and the selfless heart of a sage, all you do is in utter vanity! — C. JoyBell C.

While criticism or fear of punishment may restrain us from doing wrong, it does not make us wish to do right. Disregarding this simple fact is the great error into which parents and educators fall when they rely on these negative means of correction. The only effective discipline is self-discipline, motivated by the inner desire to act meritoriously in order to do well in one's own eyes, according to one's own values, so that one may feel good about oneself may have a good conscience. — Bruno Bettelheim

Enlightening editorial writers is even more difficult than educating educators. — Malcolm Forbes

I think that all architects, structural engineers, educators, and service personnel should have to spend a day in a wheelchair as part of training. — Juli K. Dixon

St. Augustine also states that, in a sense, shame is related to disobedience. Positively, this would mean that when there is perfect obedience to God, there is no shame. This confirms somewhat the spiritual truth that Catholic educators have observed, namely, that as obedience to the law of Christ increases, concupiscence or the passions actually diminish. — Fulton J. Sheen

Over the last forty years, many educators, decision-makers, and even some parents have come to regard the arts as peripheral, and let's face it, frivolous - especially the visual arts, with their connotation of "the starving artist" and the mistaken concept of necessary talent — Betty Edwards

That education is the most important of all professions is a message the public should hear and understand. And, as importantly, a message that our educators need to hear as well. — Lowell Milken

It is time for us to take off our masks, to step out from behind our personas - whatever they might be: educators, activists, biologists, geologists, writers, farmers, ranchers, and bureaucrats - and admit we are lovers, engaged in an erotics of place. Loving the land. Honoring its mysteries. Acknowledging, embracing the spirit of place - there is nothing more legitimate and there is nothing more true. That is why we are here. That is why we do what we do. There is nothing intellectual about it. We love the land. It is a primal affair. — Terry Tempest Williams

My plea to educators and parents is that they should give some thought to the nature of the brain of a child, for the brain is a living mechanism, not a machine. In case of breakdown, it can substitute one of its parts for the function of another. But it has its limitations. It is subject to inexorable change with the passage of time. — Wilder Penfield

A language is the joint historical creation of millions of speakers. Although all speakers have some effect on the trajectory of a language, the process is not particularly egalitarian. Linguists, grammarians, and educators, some of them backed by the power of the state, weigh in heavily. But the process is not particularly amenable to a dictatorship, either. Despite the efforts toward "central planning," language (especially its everyday spoken form) stubbornly tends to go on its own rich, multivalent, colorful way. — James C. Scott

Jonathan Wells has done us all - the scientific community, educators, and the wider public - a great service. In Icons of Evolution he has brilliantly exposed the exaggerated claims and deceptions that have persisted in standard textbook discussions of biological origins for many decades, in spite of contrary evidence. these claims have been so often repeated that they seem unassailable - that is, until one reads Wells's book. — Dean H. Kenyon

I would like to flood South Africa with black personages of all sorts of persuasions: writers, educators, businessmen, you name it. If you are black and have any clout at all, I would like to see you go to South Africa and look for yourself and come back and try to use the tools that you have at your command to try and help the brothers down there. — Arthur Ashe

I regularly invite educators and leaders to send me their questions, and hundreds of them do so every month. The most common question, however, is one to which my response is probably most disappointing. The question is "How do I get better buy-in from my staff before I implement some critically needed changes?" The answer is "You don't. — Douglas B. Reeves

EarthEcho Expeditions represents the culmination of more than a decade of working with educators and youth from around the world. EarthEcho Expeditions uses the thrill of adventure to inspire and empower a new generation of environmental champions. — Philippe Cousteau Jr.

The trick for business professionals, and for educators, is to present bodies of information so compelling that the audience does this (encoding) on their own, spontaneously engaging in deep and elaborate encoding. — John Medina

One of the things that is very silly - and I hear from educators all the time - is that schools essentially teach kids to learn. They don't need school for that. Learning is what they do best. — Ricardo Semler

It needs more than ever to be stressed that the best and truest educators are parents under God. The greatest school is the family. In learning, no act of teaching in any school or university compares to the routine task of mothers in teaching a babe who speaks no language the mother tongue in so short a time. No other task in education is equal to this. The moral training of the children, the discipline of good habits, is an inheritance from the parents to the children which surpasses all other. The family is the first and basic school of man. — Rousas John Rushdoony

Those in society who are in charge of schools must never forget that the parents have been appointed by God himself as the first and principal educators of their children and that their right is completely inalienable. — Pope John Paul II

Educators take something simple and make it complicated. Communicators take something complicated and make it simple. — John C. Maxwell

It is not enough to simply listen to student voice. Educators have an ethical imperative to do something with students, and that is why meaningful student involvement is vital to school improvement. — Adam Fletcher

I know firsthand that educators are the most overworked and underpaid people around. It influenced me in that it was always about family first, and education was right next to that. There was never any question about whether I was going to college. — Wendy Williams

When I see our country's stagnation and economic woes, I cannot help but think that we need a creative revolution that is embraced by business and endorsed by government and educators alike. — Larry R. Thompson

I have found that educators yearn to be told something like this: There will be no more initiatives - at least for a time. Instead, we will focus only on what will have an immediate and dramatic impact on learning in your classrooms: ensuring the implementation of a common, content-rich curriculum; good lessons; and plenty of meaningful literacy activities (such as close reading, writing, and discussion) across the curriculum. — Mike Schmoker

Educators are in the news, too. Usually that's bad. I had a favorite college professor. He used to tell us, 'If you make CNN as a teacher, you're probably going to jail. — Tucker Elliot