Science Teachers Quotes & Sayings

There are few ways in which good people do more harm to those who take them seriously than to defend the gospel with arguments that won't hold water. Many of the difficulties encountered by young people going to college would be avoided if parents and teachers were more careful to distinguish between what they know to be true and what they think may be true. Impetuous youth, upon finding the authority it trusts crumbling, even on unimportant details, is apt to lump everything together and throw the baby out with the bath. — Henry B. Eyring

An eternal question about children is, how should we educate them? Politicians and educators consider more school days in a year, more science and math, the use of computers and other technology in the classroom, more exams and tests, more certification for teachers, and less money for art. All of these responses come from the place where we want to make the child into the best adult possible, not in the ancient Greek sense of virtuous and wise, but in the sense of one who is an efficient part of the machinery of society. But on all these counts, soul is neglected. — Thomas Moore

Sometimes you don't have enough money to hire a real science teacher. Sometimes you have an old real science teacher who retires or quits and leaves you without a replacement. And if you don't have a real science teacher, then you pick one of the other teachers and make him the science teacher.
And that's why small-town kids sometimes don't know the truth about petrified wood. — Sherman Alexie

The popular conception of any philosophical doctrine is necessarily imperfect, and very generally unjust. Lucretius is often alluded to as an atheistical writer, who held the silly opinion that the universe was the result of a fortuitous concourse of atoms readers are asked to consider how long letters must be shaken in a bag before a complete annotated edition of Shakespeare could result from the process; and after being reminded how much more complex the universe is than the works of Shakespeare, they are expected to hold Lucretius, with his teachers and his followers, in derision. A nickname which sticks has generally some truth in it, and so has the above view, but it would be unjust to form our judgment of a man from his nickname alone, and we may profitably consider what the real tenets of Lucretius were, especially now that men of science are beginning, after a long pause in the inquiry, once more eagerly to attempt some explanation of the ultimate constitution of matter. — Fleeming Jenkin

I knew Pluto was popular among elementary schoolkids, but I had no idea they would mobilize into a 'Save Pluto' campaign. I now have a drawer full of hate letters from hundreds of elementary schoolchildren (with supportive cover letters from their science teachers) pleading with me to reverse my stance on Pluto. The file includes a photograph of the entire third grade of a school posing on their front steps and holding up a banner proclaiming, 'Dr. Tyson - Pluto is a Planet!' — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

They forget that love is not a science but an inherent state of mind; they forget that sex is practiced by animals without textbooks and that it is not such a secret that requires a complete science, courses and special training. And so impotent, with artificial stars on the ceilings of their rooms, they become the main teachers on the way to the stars. — Dejan Stojanovic

I squeeze his hand to let him know that I get it, that I share his pain. That's the moment when I think I finally understand what my science teachers tried to explain when they talked about thermal energy. My atoms are in motion making a path from my fingertips where I connect with him, spreading to my whole body and getting me hotter by the second. All my molecules seem to be moving and vibrating on their own accord, faster and faster and making my hand feels tingly. Whenever I'm around him I always have this warmth that surrounds me. When I get all flustered because he is making me all hot and bothered without even meaning to, the heat starts to resemble a fever. Now, it's like a volcano erupted all over me. It's passion and love and suffering all smashed together and linked between our hands. A little ball of emotions that keeps expanding. — Tammy Faith

I find many adults are put off when young children pose scientific questions. Why is the Moon round? the children ask. Why is grass green? What is a dream? How deep can you dig a hole? When is the world's birthday? Why do we have toes? Too many teachers and parents answer with irritation or ridicule, or quickly move on to something else: 'What did you expect the Moon to be, square?' Children soon recognize that somehow this kind of question annoys the grown-ups. A few more experiences like it, and another child has been lost to science. Why adults should pretend to omniscience before 6-year-olds, I can't for the life of me understand. What's wrong with admitting that we don't know something? Is our self-esteem so fragile? — Carl Sagan

Schools have taken a robotic, assembly-line approach toward education. In doing so, they have stripped teachers' ability to tap into the essence of a student, and the ability to find out what interests them other than math and science. — Courtney R. Logan

Our teachers, our friends, our science, our studies, even our eyes can deceive us. But the word of God is entirely true and always true: God's word is firmly fixed in the heavens (v. 89); it doesn't change. There is no limit to its perfection (v. 96); it contains nothing corrupt. All God's righteous rules endure forever (v. 160); they never get old and never wear out. — Kevin DeYoung

Trust no one," said Sullivan, "especially Teachers. — A.J. Arias

Effective science teaching calls for active contact with research and that teachers need to mingle with other scientists and to know what is going on in the field. — Alan Tower Waterman

When my kids were growing up, I wanted their teachers to teach them science, reading, math and history. I also wanted them to care about my kids. But I did not want my children's public school teachers teaching them religion. That was my job as a parent and the job of our church, Sunday school, and youth group. — Adam Hamilton

'Creation science' has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is false, and because good teachers understand exactly why it is false. — Stephen Jay Gould

The ancient teachers of this science," said he, "promised impossibilities and performed nothing. The modern masters promise very little; they know that metals cannot be transmuted and that the elixir of life is a chimera but these philosophers, whose hands seem only made to dabble in dirt, and their eyes to pore over the microscope or crucible, have indeed performed miracles. They penetrate into the recesses of nature and show how she works in her hiding-places. They ascend into the heavens; they have discovered how the blood circulates, and the nature of the air we breathe. They have acquired new and almost unlimited powers; they can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake, and even mock the invisible world with its own shadows. — Mary Shelley

We want our teachers to be trained so they can meet the obligations, their obligations as teachers. We want them to know how to teach the science of reading. In order to make sure there's not this kind of federal-federal cufflink. — George W. Bush

How do we change the way science is taught?
Ask anybody how many teachers truly made a difference in their life, and you never come up with more than the fingers on one hand. You remember their names, you remember what they did, you remember how they moved in front of the classroom. You know why you remember them? Because they were passionate about the subject. You remember them because they lit a flame within you. They got you excited about a subject you didn't previously care about, because they were excited about it themselves. That's what turns people on to careers in science and engineering and mathematics. That's what we need to promote. Put that in every classroom, and it will change the world. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Any day you had gym class was a weird school day. It started off normal. You had English, Social Studies, Geometry, then suddenly your in Lord of the Flies for 40 minutes. Your hanging from a rope, you have hardly any clothes on, teachers are yelling at you, kids are throwing dodge balls at you and snapping towels - you're trying to survive. And then it's Science,Language, and History. Now that is a weird day. — Jerry Seinfeld

Even though their arguments did not invoke religion, I think we all know what's behind these arguments. They're trying to protect religious beliefs from contradiction by science. They used to do it by prohibiting teachers from teaching evolution at all; then they wanted to teach intelligent design as an alternative theory; now they want the supposed "weaknesses" in evolution pointed out. But it's all the same program - it's all an attempt to let religious ideas determine what is taught in science courses. — Steven Weinberg

Tattitude: Wow, Jeff, who's the babe?
Dangerous_pie: Your mom.
Tattitude: No, the one three feet away from you.
Dangerous_pie: Oh, that's Lindsey Abraham. I had her flown in from California for my personal amusement. You can look at her if you want, though.
Tattitude: Sweet. But have you talked to her yet?
Dangerous_pie: Uh-huh. We're really close.
Tattitude: Intro me?
Dangerous_pie: After class.
Tattitude: Duh.
Just then, I noticed that a large shadow had fallen over my screen. I couldn't even bear to look up as Mr. Laurenzano said, "Thaddeus Ibsen, Lindsey Abraham. Lindsey, Thaddeus. There, you've been introduced. NOW can I teach some science?"
Wow, it looked like this was going to be my year for unusual teachers. — Jordan Sonnenblick

Why don't we have enough teachers of math and science in the public schools? One answer is well, if they knew the subject well, they'd also know enough to work for Google or Goldman Sachs or God knows where. — James Harris Simons

We must be willing to pay inspiring math and science teachers, who have high paying alternatives in industry, more to teach and reward students who take more challenging courses in high school. — Mark Kennedy

In a better world, science teachers would teach creationism along with evolution as an exercise in critical thinking. — Katha Pollitt

I've noticed a fascinating phenomenon in my thirty years of teaching: schools and schooling are increasingly irrelevant to the great enterprises of the planet. No one believes anymore that scientists are trained in science classes or politicians in civics classes or poets in English classes. The truth is that schools don't really teach anything except how to obey orders. This is a great mystery to me because thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers and aides and administrators, but the abstract logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions. Although teachers to care and do work very, very hard, the institution is psychopathic
it has no conscience. It rings a bell and the young man in the middle of writing a poem must close his notebook and move to a different cell where he must memorize that humans and monkeys derive from a common ancestor. — John Taylor Gatto

My education in the public schools of New York City between 1932 and 1944 was an excellent preparation for a life in science. Because of the Depression, these schools were able to attract a remarkably talented and dedicated collection of teachers who encouraged their students to strive for the highest levels of accomplishment. — Robert Fogel

Campaigning against religion can be socially counter-productive. If teachers take the uncompromising line that God and Darwinism are irreconcilable, many young people raised in a faith-based culture will stick with their religion and be lost to science. — Martin Rees

We don't learn anything there [school]. The difference between schoolteachers and philosophers us that school-teachers think they know a lot of stuff that they try to force down our throats. Philosophers try to figure things out together with the pupils — Jostein Gaarder

The great tragedy is that they're removing art completely, not because they're putting more science in, but because they can't afford the art teachers or because somebody thinks it's not useful. An enlightened society has all of this going on within it. It's part of what distinguishes what it is to be human from other life forms on Earth - that we have culture — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

So much learning," one of my Jesuit teachers has said, "so little wisdom." To put it another way, a civilization does become more technologically skilled and more learned about science, and perhaps even a little smarter as well, when it is permitted to grow for hundreds of years and spread itself from pole to pole; but we also have more tools to turn out as badly as our ancestors said we might. — Charles Pellegrino

Teachers started recognizing me and praising me for being smart in science and that made me want to be even smarter in science! — Steve Wozniak

Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers of the preceding generation. — Richard P. Feynman

Science teachers and the mentally ill, that's all Jazz is for. — Noel Fielding

It was all here for me, just as it has all been here for you, the best and the worst of Western Civilization, if you cared to pay attention: music, finance, government, architecture, law and sculpture and painting, history and medicine and athletics and every sort of science, and books, books, books, and teachers and role models.
People so smart you can't believe it, and people so dumb you can't believe it. People so nice you can't believe it, and people so mean you can't believe it. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I'm too young and ridiculous a person to speak for my generation, but I'd be happy to talk about my own experiences as a generation Y writer. I was raised by a generation of hippies. Throughout my childhood, teachers urged me to fight the establishment. My English teacher assigned Ginsberg and Kerouac and declared Bob Dylan "a genius." My science teacher told me that television was "the new opiate of the masses" and bragged about never having owned one. My drama teacher made us perform Beckett. — Simon Rich

There are science teachers who actually claim that they teach "a healthy skepticism." They do not. They teach a profound gullibility, and their dupes, trained not to think for themselves, will swallow any egregious rot, provided it is dressed up with long words and an affectation of objectivity to make it sound scientific. — Anthony Standen

Teachers seeking to 'teach the controversy' over Darwinian evolution in today's climate will likely be met with false warnings that it is unconstitutional to say anything negative about Darwinian evolution. Students who attempt to raise questions about Darwinism, or who try to elicit from the teacher an honest answer about the status of intelligent design theory will trigger administrators' concerns about whether they stand in Constitutional jeopardy. A chilling effect on open inquiry is being felt in several states already, including Ohio. South Carolina, and Pennsylvania. [District Court] Judge Jones's message is clear: give Darwin only praise, or else face the wrath of the judiciary. — David K. DeWolf

We want Florida to be first for jobs, and we must have a skilled workforce to reach that goal. By investing in science, technology, engineering and math education, we are ensuring our students are prepared for the jobs of the future. Our teachers are essential to preparing our students. — Rick Scott

When I was 7 years old, I plagiarized, word for word, stories from science fiction magazines so my teachers would think I was smart. — James Altucher

The science fair has long been a favorite educational tool in the American school system, and for a good reason: Your teachers hate you. — Dave Barry

And one of the hidden secrets of science, passed down from a few rare teachers to their grad students, is how to avoid flushing new ideas down the toilet the instant you hear one you don't like. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

My science teachers always encouraged their classes to 'go out and discover something' because all scientific endeavors depend on observation and experimentation. Through such pursuits, anyone can find something new to science, and if it's truly novel, the entire edifice of science might have to be restructured. — Greg Graffin

Teachers of science in schools and colleges must be masters of the tools for ensuring integrity in science and must instill them in their students. — Lewis M. Branscomb

In 1847 I gave an address at Newton, Mass., before a Teachers' Institute conducted by Horace Mann. My subject was grasshoppers. I passed around a large jar of these insects, and made every teacher take one and hold it while I was speaking. If any one dropped the insect, I stopped till he picked it up. This was at that time a great innovation, and excited much laughter and derision. There can be no true progress in the teaching of natural science until such methods become general. — Louis Agassiz

Black holes aren't an Earth Science topic, but Mr. Zerbiak is like that. One minute Adam Bell was asking a question about a meteoroid he found in his backyard, and the next Mr. Zerbiak was saying that he was "going a little off topic here, but ... " and of course everyone was suddnely all interested. If teachers pretended that everything they said was "off topic", we'd have a whole school full of straight-A students. — Carol Rifka Brunt

Colleges and departments of education have developed in response to the need for preparing the tens of thousands of teachers required to staff our immense public school system. That they have a most important function to discharge is plain for all to see. But instead of seeing that their products are equipped with sound learning in the various arts and sciences, they have ignored this and have concentrated almost exclusively upon methods of education. They have erected pseudo-science called "Education," most of whose courses are made up of commonplaces expressed in pretentious jargon. — Richard Weaver

And thinking never did anybody any good, no matter what your teachers and parents and the science-club freaks tell you. — Lauren Oliver

Every fool believes what his teachers tell him, and calls his credulity science or morality as confidently as his father called it divine revelation. — George Bernard Shaw

Are all the scientists here men, then?" "Scientists?" Oiie asked, incredulous. Pae coughed. "Scientists. Oh, yes, certainly, they're all men. There are some female teachers in the girls' schools, of course. But they never get past Certificate level." "Why not?" "Can't do the math; no head for abstract thought; don't belong. You know how it is, what women call thinking is done with the uterus! Of course, there's always a few exceptions, God-awful brainy women with vaginal atrophy." "You Odonians let women study science?" Oiie inquired. "Well, they are in the sciences, yes." "Not many, I hope." "Well, about half. — Ursula K. Le Guin

I cannot, however, but think that the world would be better and brighter if our teachers would dwell on the Duty of Happiness as well as the Happiness of Duty; for we ought to be as cheerful as we can, if only because to be happy ourselves is a most effectual contribution to the happiness of others. — John Lubbock

I went to an inner-city school in Buffalo. We had no money. But our teachers believed in hands-on active learning - there was a mandatory science fair, which was critical. — Megan Smith

We've heard from many teachers that they used episodes of Star Trek and concepts of Star Trek in their science classrooms in order to engage the students. — Patrick Stewart

I received comments on how extraordinary it was that I could keep up speaking for exactly 45 minutes. Indeed, in an age of soundbites lasting some seconds and of quick quotes in the news, all those minutes do seem like an eternity, easy to get lost in. Yet, wait a moment. Television is not the only place where speeches are given. Some hundred thousand teachers teach every day. They all speak 45 minutes, more times a day. They have been doing this for years. Every teacher knows exactly when the time will be over and that by then his speech will need to come to a natural end. It is this tension that determines the success of a lesson. It is a sign of the times that we forget these daily achievements in education. A million students daily attend several 'live' lectures and this in secondary education alone. These are high ratings! — Robbert Dijkgraaf

Without the continued existence of the democratic system and of publicly funded education and research, however, most current teachers and intellectuals would be unemployed or their income would fall to a small fraction of its present level. Instead of researching the syntax of Ebonics, the love life of mosquitoes, or the relationship between poverty and crime for $100 grand a year, they would research the science of potato growing or the technology of gas pump operation for $20 grand. — Hans-Hermann Hoppe

We need to tap the resource of current and retiring science and math professionals that have both content mastery and the practical experience to serve as effective teachers. — Cathy McMorris Rodgers

Audiences of critical thinkers are my favorite kinds of audiences. There are jokes I tell in the show that don't get laughs unless I am in front of an audience of critical thinkers. Put me in front of a crowd of science teachers or astronauts! The guileless aren't our audience - it's the critical thinkers we love. — Adam Savage

Farid asked, 'Do American teachers care about every student?'
I thought about a humanities teacher I'd worked with in Korea and more recently a science teacher I'd worked with in Germany. I said, 'I think most schools have a resident idiot. — Tucker Elliot

President Obama said he plans on training 10,000 new math and science teachers. How about teaching math to that economic team of his? — Jay Leno

All science has one aim, namely, to find a theory of nature. We have theories of races and of functions, but scarcely yet a remote approach to an idea of creation. We are now so far from the road to truth, that religious teachers dispute and hate each other, and speculative men are esteemed unsound and frivolous. But to a sound judgment, the most abstract truth is the most practical. Whenever a true theory appears, it will be its own evidence. Its test is, that it will explain all phenomena. Now many are thought not only unexplained but inexplicable; as language, sleep, madness, dreams, beasts, sex. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I'm aware of the stereotype many liberals have about conservative Catholics. The former believe the latter don't think - that conservative religious people don't care about facts and rigorous inquiry. But my conservative Catholic parents were thinkers. Twice as often as my parents told their four children to go wash, they told us to go look something up. At our suburban tract house on Long Island in the 1970s, our parents shelved the Encyclopaedia Britannica right next to the dinner table so we could easily reach for a volume to settle the frequent debates. The rotating stack of periodicals in our kitchen included not only religiously oriented newsletters, but also the New York Times and National Geographic. Our parents took us to science museums, woke us up for lunar eclipses, and pushed us to question our textbooks and even our teachers when they sounded wrong. — Alice Domurat Dreger