High School Teaching Quotes & Sayings

Befuddlement is a healthy part of the learning process. When students approach a problem and don't know how to do it, they'll often decide they're no good at the subject. Brighter students, in particular, can have difficulty in this way - their breezing through high school leaves them no reason to think that being confused is normal and necessary. But the learning process is all about working your way out of confusion. Articulating your question is 80 percent of the battle. By the time you've figured out what's confusing, you're likely to have answered the question yourself!" - Kenneth R. Leopold, Distinguished Teaching Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Minnesota — Barbara Oakley

I had thrived in Miss Popham's class because she was in charge of her own curriculum. She had a wonderful idea and freedom to teach as she wished. I still think hers is the best way to organize a literature class in high school if the goal is to encourage wide reading and the love of books. My own best teaching in high school reflected my attempts to replicate the spirit of that 1943 class — James Gray

In New Haven, Conn., when I was growing up, there were two sorts of Irish. There were the "drugstore cowboy" micks, who hung around the Elm Street poolroom over Longley's Lunch. And there were the earnest young Irishmen who fought their way up from the Grand Avenue saloonkeeper backgrounds of their fathers, went through Yale Law School, and have now found high place by the preferment of local politics or in the teaching profession. — James T. Farrell

My father, Robert Ernst, was teaching as an architect at the technical high school of our city. — Richard Ernst

We were supposed to be an English literature class, but Miss Nesbitt used literature to teach real life. She said she didn't have time to teach us like a regular English teacher
we were too far behind. Instead, she taught us the world through literature. — Phillip M. Hoose

Certainly by the time I was in seventh grade, I knew I had to have a long education if I wanted to become an astronomer, but I figured I'd try it, and if I didn't get far enough, I could always end up teaching in high school or math or physics. — Nancy Roman

I went to a girls high school and I went to a women's college and when I first started teaching at Georgetown it had been a single sex school and so they wanted to have some women professors when they went co-ed, and so I originally was hired to start a program there, and really encourage women to go into foreign policy. I always have done that, and I really do think that things are better when women are involved. — Madeleine Albright

The same old dumb teachers teaching the same old dumb subjects in the same old dumb school. I seem to be kind of losing interest in everything. At first I thought high school would be fun but it's just dull. Everything's dull. Maybe it's because I'm growing up and life is becoming more blase. — Beatrice Sparks

It didn't take long to figure out I'll never go back to teaching public high school. Why would I, when I can make virtually the same money waiting tables, have no stress, and work half the hours? When I can give away or trade my shifts if I need time to write or study. When I'll never have to wake up early, take my work home, or talk to anyone's parents
unless it's in regards to the nightly specials, the Spanish grenache that pairs beautifully with our house-made mole sauce. — Nicole Hardy

I guess I've done a lot of different kinds of performing at various times - opera singing, poetry reading, not least high school teaching - and I do enjoy it, at least sometimes. But I find it incredibly anxiety-producing and exhausting. Privacy is more congenial, and I go a little crazy if I can't spend a big chunk of every day, or almost every day, alone. Certainly I have to be alone to write. — Garth Greenwell

I'd be satisfied just coaching in high school. I turned down a number of colleges when I was teaching in South Bend, Indiana, before I went into the service. I honestly believe that if I hadn't enlisted in the service, I would never have left high school teaching. I'm sure I would have never left. — John Wooden

One thing I more and this is all I have to say...High School is not a separate unit from you. We are apart of you. Every man, woman, and child in this community is a part...Your ways of life in your homes and your town reflect here in the school. You can help us or you can hurt us. Our success depends largely on you. I used to think when I first started teaching school that it was all up to the teachers and the pupils. I have changed my mind. The little island of humanity that is each one of you must unite with other islands and become a mainland if we are to have a successful school. — Jesse Stuart

Teaching high school was my real training as a novelist: it got me out of my head, and (at least a little) out of books, and invested me in the lives of others and the world around me. — Garth Greenwell

For they have a way of teaching languages in Germany that is not our way, and the consequence is that when the German youth or maiden leaves the gymnasium or high school at fifteen, "it" (as in Germany one conveniently may say) can understand and speak the tongue it has been learning. In England we have a method that for obtaining the least possible result at the greatest possible expenditure of time and money is perhaps unequalled. An English boy who has been through a good middle-class school in England can talk to a Frenchman, slowly and with difficulty, about female gardeners and aunts; conversation which, to a man possessed perhaps of neither, is liable to pall. Possibly, — Jerome K. Jerome

Money buys the most experienced teachers, less-crowded classrooms, high-quality teaching materials, and after-school programs. — Robert Reich

I got a job teaching seniors at an inner-city high school. My task is to get them ready for college. This school doesn't have that great a track record of graduating people from high school, let alone getting them into college, so my job can be intimidating to say the least. This is the most consuming job I've ever had. In fact, compared to this, my position at the megachurch was a walk in the park - but I wouldn't trade my current job for anything. — Jim Henderson

The daughter of Lithuanian immigrants, born with a precocious scientific intellect and a thirst for chemical knowledge, Elion had completed a master's degree in chemistry from New York University in 1941 while teaching high school science during the day and preforming her research for her thesis at night and on the weekends. Although highly qualified, talented, and driven, she had been unable to find a job in an academic laboratory. Frustrated by repeated rejections, she had found a position as a supermarket product supervisor. When Hitchings found Trudy Elion, who would soon become on of the most innovative synthetic chemists of her generation (and a future Nobel laureate), she was working for a food lab in New York, testing the acidity of pickles and the color of egg yolk going into mayonnaise. Rescued from a life of pickles and mayonnaise ... — Siddhartha Mukherjee

I enrolled at a local college, but this time paid attention to myself - took only courses that really interested me, even if they weren't in sequence; kept out of classes with people I knew from high school, because I tended to act like the class clown around them; selected teachers by their teaching style - until I could build up my study habits. I ended up graduating with a 3.97 GPA and got into Harvard for my doctorate. — L. Todd Rose

I could have spoken from Rhode Island where I have been staying ... But I felt that, in speaking from the house of Lincoln, of Jackson, and of Wilson, my words would better convey both the sadness I feel in the action I was compelled today to make and the firmness with which I intend to pursue this course until the orders of the federal court at Little Rock can be executed without unlawful interference. (On sending troops to enforce integration in Little Rock AR High School) — Dwight D. Eisenhower

I consider the two years in Beaufort when I taught high school as perhaps the happiest time of my life. My attraction to melodrama and suffering had not yet overwhelmed me, but signs of it were surfacing. No one had warned me that a teacher could fall so completely in love with his students that graduation seemed like the death of a small civilization. — Pat Conroy

Textbooks in American history stand in sharp contrast to other teaching materials. Why are history textbooks so bad? Nationalism is one of the culprits. Textbooks are often muddled by the conflicting desires to promote inquiry and to indoctrinate blind patriotism. "Take a look in your history book, and you'll see why we should be proud" goes an anthem often sung by high school glee clubs. But we need not even look inside. — James W. Loewen

In 100 years we have gone from teaching Latin and Greek in High School to teaching remedial English in college. — Joseph Sobran

Active scholars are uniquely attracted by a high-quality graduate school of arts and sciences. Faculty members consider the teaching and training of new generations of graduate students as their highest calling. They believe that working with graduate students maintains and develops their professional skills more effectively than any other activity. It may be the main reason for the great attraction of academic jobs. Laboratory scientists have told me that the opportunity to work with graduate students keeps them in the university. For them, other options would center on research in commercial laboratories, but there the principal investigator would be assisted by technicians, and that is considered a far less creative interaction. — Henry Rosovsky

My younger sister retired a few years ago after a 30-year career teaching history and social studies at an inner-city high school. — Judy Woodruff

In my ten years of teaching I've noticed that teachers tend to have a bad habit of talking to themselves. I hypothesize that this is because we talk for a living, and we feel safe speaking our feelings aloud. Or it could be that most of us, especially the high school teacher variety, are just weird as shit. — P.C. Cast

The power of theocrasy or exercise of government rule over the masses by a hierarchy of priests or adepts rested on its dual system of teaching, namely : Exoterism and Esoterism, the former a code of discipline of the thought and mode of life of the masses; the latter the hierarchic school wherein were trained the chosen adepts destined to safeguard the rules imposed upon the people by the high priests, — Edith Starr Miller

Teaching high school in an inner-city school is not an easy task. Every teacher is responsible for 150 teenagers. The amount of work is just mind-boggling. Remember, you're not just doing a job. You have these kids' futures in your hand; you have to inspire them. — Tony Danza

We were living in Denver, Colorado, and I was teaching high school. I asked the kids to write a short story, so I thought I should write some myself. — Adrian McKinty

Anyone who really wants to coach and have a lot of impact on people's lives, high school's the way to go. To be honest with you, of all the jobs I've ever had, the one I really, truly enjoyed the most was teaching and coaching in high school. It just doesn't pay as well. — Charlie Weis

If I had my choice, every high school would be teaching financial literacy along with math and science. — Gregory Meeks

In high school, I decided I wanted to learn guitar, so I picked it up and starting teaching myself some basic chords and started playing with friends. Guitar inherently lends itself to be guitar music, especially when you're not good at guitar. — Autre Ne Veut

I was teaching drum lessons at a few high schools - everything from marching to classical to rock and jazz. I found that really rewarding, having to explain my thought process, having to think about stuff that I take for granted or as second nature. — Glenn Kotche

His attitude and behaviour was no different from any other Australian high school student and being in the teaching profession she was not entirely unfamiliar with the student culture and their perceptions that academic excellence was not the only gateway to success. — Neetha Joseph

Moreover, with the possible exception of high school - level math teachers, there is little evidence that better students make better teachers. Some nations, such as Finland, have been able to build a teaching force made up solely of star students. But other places, such as Shanghai, have made big strides in student achievement without drastically adjusting the demographics of who becomes a teacher. — Dana Goldstein

I didn't take the typical path and go to college after high school. Instead, I saved up money from teaching dance classes and moved to L.A. But my family was so supportive - I never felt pressure from them. It's crucial to find a support system, even if it's not your family. — Dianna Agron

Teachers knew every one of the students, their secrets, their grades, their home situations. And all the students knew the teachers. It was like teachers were people who finally were the most popular at school. — Victoria Kahler

This is like teaching queer remedial at the continuation high school. You were fishing, and you caught me. Don't you get that?"
"Oh, hell no." Tristan just stared. — Z.A. Maxfield

If i wouldn't have done comedy, I would have been a teacher. I was really good when I took an exploratory teaching class in high school, at getting kids' attention, and delivering lesson plans. Though my principal even told me that this was what I was meant to do. And that being a big-mouth comedian was a waste of time. — Gabriel Iglesias

A Minneapolis, Minnesota high school teacher hung this sign under the clock in her classroom. "Time will pass ... Will you?" — James E. Myers

I woke up to the world of science when my high school chemistry teacher introduced me to the elegantly ordered periodic table. — Isadore Singer

In 1971, Bossier City, Louisiana, there was a teenage girl who was pregnant with her second child. She was a high school dropout and a single mom, but somehow she managed to make a better life for herself and her children. She encouraged her kids to be creative, to work hard, and to do something special. That girl is my mother and she's here tonight. And I just want to say, I love you, Mom. Thank you for teaching me to dream. — Jared Leto

The goal isn't to be successful; it's to be happy. And so it doesn't matter if I'm doing things in New York or teaching high school or I drop it altogether and sell coffee. The goal is to be happy, and people and relationships are what makes you happy. — Susan Egan

Your mother would have more luck winning her election than teaching you how to be charming. Izzy Malone, going to charm school! Are you going to walk across the room with a book stuck on your head?"

"No, it's not like that at all," I said as he doubled over with laughter. "And I really don't see what's so funny."

"It's just that"--he gasped--"it would be like teaching a hippo to wear high heels! — Jenny Lundquist

It was only when I got to high school and was in the art program that my artistic talent was recognized. The art program was directed by a wonderful and a very important person in my life - Charlotte Ranger, who was referred to as Mrs. Ranger. She had been teaching in the school for many years. — Paul Smith

The first and foremost duty of the high school in teaching mathematics is to emphasize methodical work in problem solving ... The teacher who wishes to serve equally all his students, future users and nonusers of mathematics, should teach problem solving so that it is about one-third mathematics and two-thirds common sense. — George Polya