Purposeful Teaching Quotes & Sayings

The normal curve is a distribution most appropriate to chance and random activity. Education is a purposeful activity and we seek to have students learn what we would teach. Therefore, if we are effective, the distribution of grades will be anything but a normal curve. In fact, a normal curve is evidence of our failure to teach. — Benjamin Bloom

It is a libel to suggest that children need rewards for attending to tasks, apart from intrinsic interest and satisfaction. Children work very hard in their purposeful endeavors in the world, when they have ends they want to accomplish themselves. It is meaningless teaching, not learning, that demands irrelevant incentives. — Frank Smith

Early numbers are always wrong. — Mary Cheney

I remember to breathe throughout the day. I remind myself that I can choose peace, no matter what is going on around me. Whenever I desire, I can retreat to that quiet place within simply by closing my eyes. — Doreen Virtue

No generality has any weight whatever. It is like saying "how do you do?" When you have no intention of inquiring about ones health. But specific claims when made in print are taken at their value — Claude C. Hopkins

That assumption - that labeling and sorting children based on gender doesn't really matter as long as everyone is treated fairly - would hold true if children only paid attention to the more overt, obvious messages we adults send. If children only listened to our purposeful messages, parenting would be easy. Most (but not all) parents and teachers take great effort in treating their children fairly, regardless of gender. Parents don't need to say to their daughters, "You probably won't enjoy math" or say to their sons, "Real boys don't play with dolls." Most parents wouldn't dream of saying these blatant stereotypes to their kids. But research has shown that when we label (and sort and color-code) by gender, children do notice. And it matters - children are learning whether you mean to be teaching them or not. — Christia Spears Brown

I finally understood what true love meant ... love meant that you care for another person's happiness more than your own, no matter how painful the choices you face might be. — Nicholas Sparks

If you want customers to hear about you, make something worth talking about. — Seth Godin

Worksheets - the archenemy of abundant, purposeful reading (and discussion and writing). — Mike Schmoker