Quotes & Sayings About Great School Teachers

Nothing teaches great writing like the very best books do. Yet, good teachers often help students cross that bridge, and I have to say that I had a few extraordinary English teachers in high school whom I still credit for their guidance. — Julia Glass

As a retired educator I have seen first-hand the impact a great education can have on a young person's life. I will always be a champion for public schools, our teachers, and our children. — Alma Adams

In brief, the teaching process, as commonly observed, has nothing to do with the investigation and establishment of facts, assuming that actual facts may ever be determined. Its sole purpose is to cram the pupils, as rapidly and as painlessly as possible, with the largest conceivable outfit of current axioms, in all departments of human thought - to make the pupil a good citizen, which is to say, a citizen differing as little as possible, in positive knowledge and habits of mind, from all other citizens. In other words, it is the mission of the pedagogue, not to make his pupils think, but to make them think right, and the more nearly his own mind pulsates with the great ebbs and flows of popular delusion and emotion, the more admirably he performs his function. He may be an ass, but this is surely no demerit in a man paid to make asses of his customers. — H.L. Mencken

My family supported me. I wasn't hot-housed at all as a young child; I didn't go to any kind of gifted school. They didn't exist in the very poor parts of England when I grew up in the 1980s. I had a great time to learn, had access to libraries and teachers who were patient and enthusiastic when I showed ability in some subjects. — Daniel Tammet

Estiven Rodriguez couldn't speak a word of English when he moved to New York City at age nine. But last month, thanks to the support of great teachers and an innovative tutoring program, he led a march of his classmates - through a crowd of cheering parents and neighbors - from their high school to the post office, where they mailed off their college applications. And this son of a factory worker just found out he's going to college this fall. — Barack Obama

Education delivered by a strict councellor, and recieved with great pains would never brighten the future of any student. — Michael Bassey Johnson

I had great English teachers in high school who first piqued my interest in Shakespeare. Each year, we read a different play - 'Othello,' 'Julius Caesar,' 'Macbeth,' 'Hamlet' - and I was the nerd in class who would memorize soliloquies just for the fun of it. — Ian Doescher

As we're told that 10 percent of all high school education will be computer-based by 2014 and rise to 50 percent by 2019, and as the PowerPoint throws up aphoristic bromides by the corporate heroes of the digitally driven 'global economy'
the implication being that 'great companies' know what they're doing, while most schools don't
and as we're goaded mercilessly to the conclusion that everything we are, know, and do is bound for the dustbin of history, I want to ask what kind of schooling Bill Gates and Steve Jobs had. Wasn't it at bottom the very sort of book-based, content-driven education that we declare obsolete in the name of their achievements? — Garret Keizer

Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. Albert Einstein didn't speak until he was four years old and was considered not very bright. Oprah Winfrey was demoted from a news anchor job because she was thought to be unfit for television. Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper for lacking imagination. Thomas Edison was called stupid by his teachers. The Beatles were told they didn't have a great sound and rejected by Decca Recording Studios. Dr. Suess was rejected by twenty-seven publishers. Abraham Lincoln had a long list of failures, including eight election losses and a nervous breakdown. — Tim Suttle

Just the actual physical ability to hold four instruments simultaneously and do some of the things that Vivien was able to do is mind blowing to any surgeon. He never went to medical school and he became one of the great teachers of medicine himself, people are just amazed. — Mary Stuart Masterson

I know an American family that spent several years living in England. They had one son, who was an average student: not great, but not terrible. When the family returned home to the United States, the parents enrolled him in the local public school. Mom was startled by the continual drumbeat from teachers and other parents: "Maybe your son has ADHD. Have you considered trying a medication?" She told me, "It was weird, like everybody was in on this conspiracy to medicate my son. In England, none of the kids is on medication. Or if they are, it's a secret. But I really don't think many are. Here it seems like almost all the kids are on medication. Especially the boys. — Leonard Sax

As with any great literature, there are probably as many ways to read William Faulkner's writing as there are readers. There are hundreds of books devoted to interpretations of his novels, numerous biographies, and every year high school teachers and college professors guide their students through one or more of the novels. But after all is said and done, there are the books themselves, and the pleasure of reading them can be deep and lasting. The language Faulkner uses ranges from the poetically beautiful, nearly biblical to the coarse sounds of rough dialect. His characters linger in the mind, whether for their heroism or villainy, their stoicism or self-indulgence, their honesty or deceitfulness or self-deception, their wisdom or stupidity, their gentleness or cruelty. In short, like Shakespeare, William Faulkner understood what it means to be human. — William Faulkner

Teachers have had a great effect on me as a child. I've always loved school and had a great appetite for learning. I cried when it was time to go back home and tried to jump from my mother's moving car to run back there. — Alison Hawthorne Deming

Research confirms that great teachers change lives. Students with one highly effective elementary school teacher are more likely to go to college, less likely to become pregnant as teens, and earn tens of thousands more over their lifetimes. — Wendy Kopp

There is a tendency to throw computers at third world problems, which I think is often a distraction. Putting computers in the schools is great, but it may be more important to put teachers in the schools. — Terry Winograd

Most teachers have little control over school policy or curriculum or choice of texts or special placement of students, but most have a great deal of autonomy inside the classroom. To a degree shared by only a few other occupations, such as police work, public education rests precariously on the skill and virtue of the people at the bottom of the institutional pyramid. — Tracy Kidder

I have not seen that standardised tests make the profession less attractive, though some principals respond to them in a way that drives the best teachers out of their schools (by over-emphasising test prep in the school curriculum for example). On the other hand, great teachers want benchmarks to measure progress and tests can help with that. — Wendy Kopp

a young person wants to learn philosophy these days, he or she would be better advised to become immersed in the domain directly and avoid the field altogether: "I'd tell him to read the great books of philosophy. And I would tell him not to do graduate study at any university. I think all philosophy departments are no good. They are all terrible." By and large, however, jurisdiction over a given domain is officially left in the hands of a field of experts. These may range from grade school teachers to university professors and include anyone who has a right to decide whether a new idea or product is "good" or "bad." It is impossible to understand creativity without understanding how fields operate, how they decide whether something new should or should not be added to the domain. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The biggest barrier we've seen to student progress is this: School policies and practices often prevent good teachers from doing great work and even dissuade some talented Americans from entering the profession. This needs to change. — Eli Broad

I needed to wander ... whenever and wherever I wanted! I'd found myself at the end of my rope as far as school was concerned; there seemed no particular reason for me to stay. The teachers didn't want to teach, and I didn't want to learn - from them. I wanted my education to come from living life, getting out there in the world, seeing and doing and moving amongst the other vagabonds who had had the same sneaking suspicion that I did, that there would be no great need for high-end mathematics, nope ... I was not going to be doing other people's taxes and going home at 5:37 p.m. to pat my dog's head and sit down to my one meat and two vegetable table waiting for Jeopardy to pop on the glass tit, the Pat Sajak of my own private game show, in the bellybutton of the universe, Miramar, Florida. — Johnny Depp

Great teachers and schools expect and nurture quality work and quality performance. Great teachers inspire and demand quality, ever urging their students to higher levels of excellence. They shun mere conformity and expect their students to think and perform to their ever-increasing potential. — Oliver DeMille

I moved to Chicago and began attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The students and teachers I met in Chicago were politically active and also passionate about the same things that I was interested in. It was a great match for me. — Stephen Beal

I'm into books - I love literature, so I toyed with the idea of being an English teacher. I had a fantastic English teacher at school. I think great English teachers make the world go round. — Taron Egerton

Finding great training, I think, is number one. I did a lot of research and found really great teachers, and it just takes - I took a year off from school and did independent studies so that I could devote all of my time to it. But I think that training is the key, definitely, and it's not a sport. — Misty Copeland

Do you know why teachers use me? Because I speak in tongues. I write metaphors. Every one of my stories is a metaphor you can remember. The great religions are all metaphor. We appreciate things like Daniel and the lion's den, and the Tower of Babel. People remember these metaphors because they are so vivid you can't get free of them and that's what kids like in school. They read about rocket ships and encounters in space, tales of dinosaurs. All my life I've been running through the fields and picking up bright objects. I turn one over and say, Yeah, there's a story. And that's what kids like. Today, my stories are in a thousand anthologies. And I'm in good company. The other writers are quite often dead people who wrote in metaphors: Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne. All these people wrote for children. They may have pretended not to, but they did. — Ray Bradbury

Zip codes might be great for sorting mail, but they should not determine the quality of a child s education or success in the future workforce," said Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia. "With common standards and assessments, students, parents, and teachers will have a clear, consistent understanding of the skills necessary for students to succeed after high school and compete with peers across the state line and across the ocean. — Bob Wise

Uh-huh. I think she was flattered. It'll help fill her bucket." "Huh?" "You know - the bucket ... " "What are you talking about?" "Well, the elementary school teachers talk about the bucket a lot. Everyone has one. When people say nice things to you, do nice things, make you feel better about yourself, they're filling your bucket. When people are mean or insulting or hurtful in any way, they're emptying your bucket and you don't want to go around with an empty bucket. It makes you sad and cranky. And you don't want to be emptying other peoples' buckets - that also makes you unhappy. The best way is to fill all the buckets you can and keep yours nice and full by looking for positive people and experiences." She smiled. Troy leaned his elbow on the bar and rested his head in his hand. "What do I have to do to get a job with you?" "Master's degree in counseling." She took a sip. "Easy peasy. You'd be great. — Robyn Carr

We got up at 6am to go to school for a few years and we found it so challenging. Some people in our country have woken up at 6am every single morning for decades now so that this nation can wake up and see great mornings. I salute all those wonderful super humans who are inspiring a better tomorrow. Thank you, Teachers! — Sharad Vivek Sagar

Going to the school to meet the visually impaired was special. I thought I was inspiring them. I was thinking what I could possibly say to inspire them. Instead of me inspiring them, I felt they inspired me. They showed me how much courage they have, and how hard these teachers are working for these children. They made me feel like I don't have any problems in life. It gave me uplift. They made me feel so great. — Yanni

The genesis of my interest in being a writer can be traced to fourth grade when we listened to a radio production of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew and I asked the teacher if I could rewrite it for our class to present. Nothing like going head-to-head with the Bard, right?
I can still visualise the pages I filled creating this first "great" literary endeavor. Encouraged by teachers (and one doting grandmother), I went on to write reams of yearbook copy in high school and college and, then, to teach high school English. My "real" writing career didn't begin until I turned from education to the full-time pursuit of storytelling. — Laura Abbot

There is a night school where you shall meet great teachers: The sky! When the night falls, the shining stars in the school will teach you how small you are and how comical to own an ego! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

When I think back on the twenty years I spent in school, what sticks with me isn't any particular subject, learning tool, or classroom. It is the teachers who brought my education to life and drove my interest forward, so that my passion for learning continued, despite the long days, the hard chairs, the difficult problems. These women and men were giants. They were underpaid, and they put up with all sorts of crap, but they made me the person I am today vastly more than the facts they taught. That relationship is what digital education technology cannot ever replicate or replace, and why a great teacher will always provide a more innovative model for the future of education than the most sophisticated device, software, or platform. — David Sax

I definitely felt by the time I got to grad school - which was a great experience - I was like, 'What's the difference between the teachers and the students? Why are the teachers teachers if they want to be acting?' It didn't make sense to me anymore. It's not like you learn how to set a broken bone and you get the stamp of approval. — Taylor Schilling

I did my English A level in England, and we studied Shakespeare. I had great, great high school teachers, and we parsed the text within an inch of its life. — Joss Whedon

You can have great teachers, but if you don't have a good principal, you won't have a good school. — Eli Broad

My public school teachers did a great job of saying, 'Check this out. You're qualified for this. You should explore these opportunities.' They're the ones who said, 'You know, apply to Harvard. You might be a good fit here.' — Priscilla Chan

Most of all, there is this truth: No matter how great your teachers may be, and no matter how esteemed your academy's reputation, eventually you will have to do the work by yourself. Eventually, the teachers won't be there anymore. The walls of the school will fall away, and you'll be on your own. The hours that you will then put into practice, study, auditions, and creation will be entirely up to you. — Elizabeth Gilbert

My mother did an incredible job - one, of just being a great mom, but two, of instilling a tremendous amount of empathy into me as a young man, as a young person. My mom was kind of this collector of people; throughout my childhood, it didn't matter who you were. She was a high school counselor and then a junior high counselor, and she didn't just counsel students, she counseled other teachers and administrators and coaches. — Morgan Spurlock

We think we learn from teachers, and we sometimes do. But the teachers are not always to be found in school or in great laboratories. Sometimes what we learn depends upon our own powers of insight. — Loren Eiseley

Public libraries are our great teachers and storytellers, and are a vital adjunct to our schools. In this day of standardized and homogenized education, a library offers individual and personalized learning opportunities second to none. — Julie Andrews

Though we were all taught to be proud of living in this great parliamentary democracy the civil servants who ran it were a fearsome bunch - a nameless mass of people with jobs (police, social workers, record-keepers, teachers, councilmen) whose sole purpose was to keep everyone shuffling from birth to death in a nice orderly queue. Surely some social-service record had been passed to the local constabulary bearing a huge black question mark beside the name Finn and the scrawled words, Why isn't this boy in school — Meg Rosoff

In the Westerville, Ohio, school district, for example, a union contract provision stipulated that a coin flip would be used to determine seniority if two teachers were hired on the same day. One might be a great teacher, the other awful; it makes no difference. That is how much importance unions place on teacher quality. — Glenn Beck