Quotes & Sayings About Teachers By Students

The narrator welcomes new students to his school by offering to tell them who the easy teachers are, or who the good ones are. — Pat Conroy

Real education happens only by failing, changing, challenging, and adjusting. All of those gerunds apply to teachers as well as students. No person is an "educator," because education is not something one person does to another. Education is an imprecise process, a dance, and a collaborative experience. — Siva Vaidhyanathan

private school teachers tend to have fewer credentials and to cling to traditional teaching styles, such as lecturing while students sit in rows and take notes. Public school teachers, by contrast, are much more likely to be certified, to hold higher degrees, and to embrace research-based innovations in curriculum and pedagogy — David C. Berliner

When school districts are measured by how much confidence, worth and hope their graduates have acquired while in school, when the role of education becomes more about nurturing students and a love for learning than standardized test scores, when the term "honor" student stands more for a child's character than than their grades, then schools will again take their role as a place for effective change in America. Until then education will continue to be run by paper chasing, pride driven central office administrators and educational bureaucrats trying to prove their worth to politicians who don't even know our kids. Let our teachers care, let our children thrive. Let our teachers teach. — Tom Krause

Education must begin with the solution of the student-teacher contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students. — Paulo Freire

(The Hindu's first issue counted a grand total of eighty copies, printed with 'one rupee and eight annas' of borrowed money by a group of four law students and two teachers). In — Shashi Tharoor

Authentic thinking, thinking that is concerned about reality, does not take place in ivory tower isolation, but only in communication. If it is true that thought has meaning only when generated by action upon the world, the subordination of students to teachers becomes impossible. — Paulo Freire

According to a 1995 study, a sample of Japanese eighth graders spent 44 percent of their class time inventing, thinking, and actively struggling with underlying concepts. The study's sample of American students, on the other hand, spent less than 1 percent of their time in that state. "The Japanese want their kids to struggle," said Jim Stigler, the UCLA professor who oversaw the study and who cowrote The Teaching Gap with James Hiebert. "Sometimes the [Japanese] teacher will purposely give the wrong answer so the kids can grapple with the theory. American teachers, though, worked like waiters. Whenever there was a struggle, they wanted to move past it, make sure the class kept gliding along. But you don't learn by gliding. — Daniel Coyle

When it was first proposed to establish laboratories at Cambridge, Todhunter, the mathematician, objected that it was unnecessary for students to see experiments performed, since the results could be vouched for by their teachers, all of them of the highest character, and many of them clergymen of the Church of England. — Bertrand Russell

Hagrid's hint about the spiders was far easier to understand - the trouble was, there didn't seem to be a single spider left in the castle to follow. Harry looked everywhere he went, helped (rather reluctantly) by Ron. They were hampered, of course, by the fact that they weren't allowed to wander off on their own but had to move around the castle in a pack with the other Gryffindors. Most of their fellow students seemed glad that they were being shepherded from class to class by teachers, but Harry found it very irksome. One person, however, seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the atmosphere of terror and suspicion. Draco Malfoy was strutting around the school as though he had just been appointed Head Boy. Harry didn't realize what he was so pleased about until the Potions lesson about two weeks after Dumbledore and Hagrid had left, when, sitting right behind Malfoy, Harry overheard him gloating to Crabbe and Goyle. "I always thought Father might be the one who — J.K. Rowling

You know, students who major in elementary education - they're going to be grade school teachers - they have the highest rates of math anxiety of any college major. And they bring that into the classroom. So you find students being introduced to math concepts by teachers who may have not only a lack of training but also a lack of enthusiasm about math. — Anya Kamenetz

Few academics and high school history teachers want to risk their careers by suggesting to their students that the father of their country worked the same day job as Donald Trump. Washington was a land developer, often described as the richest of his generation. — Rinker Buck

Your total ignorance of that which you profess to teach merits the death penalty. I doubt whether you would know that St. Cassian of Imola was stabbed to death by his students with their styli. His death, a martyr's honorable one, made him a patron saint of teachers. Pray to him, you deluded fool, you "anyone for tennis?" golf-playing, cocktail-quaffing pseudo-pedant, for you do indeed need a heavenly patron. Although your days are numbered, you will not die as a martyr - for you further no holy cause - but as the total ass which you really are. ZORRO A sword was drawn on the last line of the page. — John Kennedy Toole

Teachers influence the problems that are posed through engaging students with specific materials and experiences as well as by determining the understandings at the center of a particular unit of inquiry. Teachers, however, negotiate the curriculum with students, not just build curriculum from students, so that investigations grow out of process. Guided inquiry, where the teacher is the problem-poser and students are problem-solvers, is often found in skill instruction. For example, teachers may use assessment to determine students' needs as readers and — Simon Davidson

The clergy profession is fundamentally self-defeating. Its stated purpose is to nurture spiritual maturity in the church - a valuable goal. In actuality, however; it accomplishes the opposite by nurturing a permanent dependence of the laity on the clergy. Clergy become to their congregations like parents whose children never grow up, like therapists whose clients never become healed, like teachers whose students never graduate. — Christian Smith

He began
to think, here, of local intellectuals such as the pulavar and of his friends
in the Readers' Circle, as keys to this side of the struggle. That is, he began
to argue that if one viewed such intellectuals as 'folk repositories' of local
knowledge, then it was obvious that they had a dual potential. Dual because,
on the one hand, such intellectuals could be (and mostly were) co-opted
by the hegemonic 'web' as teachers, graduate students, journalists, and so
forth, in which case they merely, 'organically,' reproduced the overmastering
'web'; yet, on the other hand, they could become (to their peril and inherent
risk) the central sources of inspiration and knowledge for the production
of a counter-hegemonic revolution. He began to imagine this duality as a
singular, existential choice open to such intellectuals, to all intellectuals, and
to himself. — Mark P. Whitaker

But when I sat listening with the other Aikido students and teachers on the mat at the Kumano Juku Dojo, all of us dripping with sweat and focused intently on the practice of Aikido in the here and now, the Floating Bridge of Heaven did not feel like an abstract reference to a story of the past. It was a vivid invitation to venture into the world of the spirit, and to integrate that sacred spirit of creativity into all of our actions. It was a compelling reminder that to O-Sensei, and by extension to all sincere students of his art, Aikido was far more than physical technique. — Linda Holiday

Teachers who pander to minority students by turning their courses into rap sessions and ethnic navel-gazing exercises capture their interest and allegiance. — Thomas Sowell

Time and again, researchers have shown that students' capabilities are powerfully impacted by the identities they develop for themselves as the result of teachers' belief in their level of intelligence. — Tony Robbins

There are better ways we can transform this virulent hatred - by living our ideals, the Peace Corps, exchange students, teachers, exporting our music, poetry, blue jeans. — Helen Thomas

Teachers, who are really good create that environment where you can be very satisfied by the process of learning. If you do something and you find it a very satisfying experience then you want to do more of it. The great teachers somehow convey in their very attitude and their words and their actions and everything they do that this is an important thing you're learning. You end up wanting to do more of it and more of it and more of it. That's a real talent some people have to convey the importance of that and to reflect it back to the students. — Jeff Bezos

The Korean private market had unbundled education down to the one in-school variable that mattered most: the teacher. It was about as close to a pure meritocracy as it could be, and just as ruthless. In hagwons, teachers were free agents. They did not need to be certified. They didm;t have benefits or even guaranteed base salary; their pay was determined by how many students signed up for their classes, by their students' test-score growth, and, in many hagwons, by the results of satisfaction surveys given to students and parents. — Amanda Ripley

What is six million?" When you look at the number you see merely a six followed by six zeros. You don't see parents and children. You don't see rabbis, professionals, and workers. You don't see teachers and eager students. You don't see communal and cultural institutions which took hundreds of years to develop. "Six million" is just too anonymous a term to convey what was really lost during the Holocaust. — Jack Werber

But parents aren't the only ones who can address stereotype threat. There's a lot that educators at all levels can do.

Dr. Steele emphasizes the role that teachers of diverse students can play in helping their students of color excel by taking an interest in them, their families, and their lives; by earning their trust; and by helping them understand that they see their potential. — Michele Stephenson

Anyone who truly cares about children must be repelled by the insistence on ranking them, rating them, and labeling them. Whatever the tests measure is not the sum and substance of any child. The tests do not measure character, spirit, heart, soul, potential. When overused and misused, when attached to high stakes, the tests stifle the very creativity and ingenuity that our society needs most. Creativity and ingenuity stubbornly resist standardization. Tests should be used sparingly to help students and teachers, not to allocate rewards and punishments and not to label children and adults by their scores. — Diane Ravitch

Feeling pummeled by the outside pounding of tests and standards, a teacher can easily hide and simply turn to the immediacy of the classroom. It is not surprising that many teachers burrow in their rooms with all that they know about their students. There is no place to take the information. — Heidi Hayes Jacobs

Dear friends & fellow characters, you all know the importance we attach to the power of collective prayer in this our desperate struggle for survival. Some of us have more existence than others, at various times according to fashion. But even this is becoming extremely shadowy & precarious, for we are not read, & when read , we are read badly, we are not lived as we used to be, we are not identified with & fantasized, we are rapidly forgotten. Those of us who have the good fortune to be read by teachers, scholars, & students are not read as we used to be read, but analyzed as schemata, structures, functions within structures, logical & mathematical formulae, aporia, psychic movements, social significances & so forth. — Christine Brooke-Rose

In some circumstances, a focus on extrinsic rewards (money) can actually diminish effort. Most (or at least many) teachers enter their profession not because of the money but because of their love for children and their dedication to teaching. The best teachers could have earned far higher incomes if they had gone to banking. It is almost insulting to assume that they are not doing what they can to help their students learn, and that by paying them an extra $500 or $1,500, they would exert greater effort. Indeed, incentive pay can be corrosive: it reminds teachers of how bad their pay is, and those who are led thereby to focus on money may be induced to find a better paying job, leaving behind only those for whom teaching is the only alternative. (Of course, if teachers perceive themselves to be badly paid, that will undermine morale, and that will have adverse incentive effects) — Joseph E. Stiglitz

Coach John Wooden20, one of the best basketball coaches and teachers of all time. To be effective teachers, he tells us "we have not taught students, until they have learned." We shouldn't judge our effectiveness by how much we teach, what we teach, and how we teach. Rather, we make a positive judgment if we've approached students every day knowing that our success depends on how well students learn. — Janet Pilcher

By the time they finish high school - after years of learning how to please their teachers and coaches, not to mention schmoozing with their parents' friends - elite students have become accomplished adult-wranglers. — William Deresiewicz

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

Most Christian teachers would profess to believe that their students are made in the image of God. . .Classroom practices, however, often reveal that students are not treated accordingly. They are not challenged to think through issues and carefully examine the various positions relevant to the issue. Instead they are simply given information as correct answers to be remembered and reproduced on a test or in some other written form. Rather than create an art project that reveals something about the way they view the world, they are given specific instructions for completing each step of the project and criticized, for example, if the trees are not green. While verbally teaching Johnny that he is an important person, a teacher may employ a learning model or classroom discipline system that clearly treats him as on object to be shaped and controlled by a system. . . (p18) — Donovan L. Graham

In fact, I think that our society expects schools to get students to the point where they do things only for outside rewards. People who perform tasks for their internal reasons are hard to control. Now, I don't think teachers get up in the morning and say to themselves, 'I', going to go to school today and take away all those young people's internal motivations' ... but that's exactly what often happens. — Kirsten Olson

Everyday more educators are showing that they value students by involving them in meaningful ways in school. These teachers and administrators say that it is not about 'making students happy' or allowing students to run the school. Their experience shows that when educators partner with students to improve learning, teaching and leadership in schools, school change is positive and effective. — Adam Fletcher

The essence of physical education in Naperville 203 is teaching fitness instead of sports. The underlying philosophy is that if physical education class can be used to instruct kids how to monitor and maintain their own health and fitness, then the lessons they learn will serve them for life. And probably a longer and happier life at that. What's being taught, really is a lifestyle. The students are developing healthy habits, skills, and a sense of fun, along with a knowledge of how their bodies work. Naperville's gym teachers are opening up new vistas for their students by exposing them to such a wide range of activities that they can't help but find something they enjoy. They're getting kids hooked on moving instead of sitting in front of the television. — John J. Ratey

Teaching methods are often inadequate for the goals faculties are trying to achieve. Important courses such as expository writing and foreign languages are frequently taught by untrained graduate students and underpaid adjunct teachers. — Derek Bok

Service members will only stay on active duty if they can provide for their families - and DOD schools provide a world-class education that has proven time and again to be an incentive for sailors, soldiers, airmen and marines to reenlist. Military dependents that attend DoDDS schools are highly regarded by prestigious universities the world over for a number of reasons, but there's one that you'd have a hard time replicating in a stateside school system: they've lived overseas, traveled the world, seen and experienced other cultures, learned foreign languages through immersion, and they've gained an understanding of the world that you can't get in a traditional classroom. Add a rigorous curriculum and a long track record of high test scores throughout DoDDS, and it's pretty easy to see why military kids are in such high demand. — Tucker Elliot

Historians have long been squeamish about acknowledging that General Washington, like many of the American founders, was a voracious land speculator. Few academics and high school history teachers want to risk their careers by suggesting to their students that the father of their country worked the same day job as Donald Trump. — Rinker Buck

What do teachers and curriculum directors mean by 'value' reading? A look at the practice of most schools suggests that when a school 'values' reading what it really means is that the school intensely focuses on raising state-mandated reading test scores- the kind of reading our students will rarely, if ever, do in adulthood. — Kelly Gallagher

He went to work in this preparatory lesson, not unlike Morgiana in the Forty Thieves: looking into all the vessels ranged before him, one after another, to see what they contained. Say, good M'Choakumchild. When from thy boiling store, thou shalt fill each jar brim full by-and-by, dost thou think that thou wilt always kill outright the robber Fancy lurking within - or sometimes only maim him and distort him! — Charles Dickens

By the time these students enter the workforce, many of the jobs they will apply for ill be in industries that don't even exist yet. That's a hard future to prepare someone for. Teachers have their sights set on the real goal: not to produce Ivy League graduates, but to encourage the development of naturally curious, confident, flexible, and happy learners who are ready for whatever the future has in store. — Taylor Mali

"Teachers" ... treat students neither coercively nor instrumentally but as joint seekers of truth and of mutual actualization. They help students define moral values not by imposing their own moralities on them but by positing situations that pose hard moral choices and then encouraging conflict and debate. They seek to help students rise to higher stages of moral reasoning and hence to higher levels of principled judgment. — James MacGregor Burns

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

It's helpful to know that Eden drew his inspiration from a classic study led by the Harvard psychologist Robert Rosenthal, who teamed up with Lenore Jacobson, the principal of an elementary school in San Francisco. In eighteen different classrooms, students from kindergarten through fifth grade took a Harvard cognitive ability test. The test objectively measured students' verbal and reasoning skills, which are known to be critical to learning and problem solving. Rosenthal and Jacobson shared the test results with the teachers: approximately 20 percent of the students had shown the potential for intellectual blooming, or spurting. Although they might not look different today, their test results suggested that these bloomers would show "unusual intellectual gains" over the course of the school year. — Adam M. Grant

Effective Peer Coaches emphasize inquiry over advocacy. Too much advocacy can produce learned helplessness. Inquiry builds capacity to improve teaching and learning by helping teachers to be more effective at designing and implementing learning activities that meet the needs of their students. — Lester Joseph Foltos

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 1975, 31 percent of college teachers were female; by 2009, the number had grown to 49.2 percent.7 There are more women teaching in college than ever, and it is quite possible that their presence, coupled with our discovery of the postmodern narrative, has had a feminizing effect on the collective unconscious of faculty thought. Strong winds of compassion blow across campus quads. Women are more empathetic than men, more giving, simply more bothered by anyone's underdog status. Many of the female adjuncts I have spoken to seem blessed and cursed by feelings of maternity toward the students. Women think about their actions, and the consequences of their actions, in a deeper way than do men. — Professor X.

I flunked my exam for university two times before I was accepted by what was considered my city's worst university, Hangzhou Teachers University. I was studying to be a high school English teacher. In my university, I was elected student chairman and later became chairman of the city's Students Federation. — Jack Ma

So I heard on the news that the Tard died and your house burnt down. I bet secretly you're relieved you don't have to live with him anymore in that dump."
The whole commotion in the hallway immediately stopped, as if her words had been spoken over the intercom. It became so quiet that you could hear Mina's and Nan's sharp intakes of breath. Mina wasn't prone to violence and was about to think of something mean to say back to Savannah, but she didn't have the chance to, because Nan Taylor, perky, happy-go-lucky Nan Taylor, pulled back her fist and punched Savannah in the face.
Savannah wasn't prepared, and fell to the floor. Nan stood over her shocked face and yelled, "No way was he handicapped, or different. He was the most special, coolest and smartest kid ever. And the world is a much sadder place because he's not here. And don't you ever, EVER, insult him again!" Nan shook with anger.
The hall was full of students and teachers, and one by one they started to clap. — Chanda Hahn

There are teachers and students with square minds who are by nature meant to undergo the fascination of catagories. For them, 'schools' and 'movements' are everything; by painting a group symbol on the brow of mediocrity, they condone their own incomprehension of true genius. — Vladimir Nabokov

Television didn't transform education. Neither will the internet. But it will be another tool for teachers to use in their effort to reach students in the classroom. It will also be a means by which students learn outside the classroom — John Palfrey

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

No Child Left Behind taught us that parents, teachers and state and local leaders are more suited to address students' needs than a one-size-fits-all accountability system developed by Washington bureaucrats. — John Kline

There is this thing called the university, and everybody goes there now. And there are these things called teachers who make students read this book with good ideas or that book with good ideas until that's where we get our ideas. We don't think them; we read them in books.
I like Utopian talk, speculation about what our planet should be, anger about what our planet is.
I think writers are the most important members of society, not just potentially but actually. Good writers must have and stand by their own ideas. — Kurt Vonnegut

When I took over as chair of the fashion program, I was horrified that only the faculty member was allowed to speak in a critique. I'm talking about perfectly nurturing teachers. But the rule was there would be no call of hands for students to contribute their feedback. It was embedded in the department's culture. That was alarming to me. When I was teaching, I was the least important person in the room as far as I was concerned
my students' points of view mattered most. I wanted to learn who they were and teach them to respect one another's perspectives.
I would start off by saying something like, I am having trouble understanding how this work solves the problem at hand. Here are some things about the work that I appreciate: X, Y, Z. But I see these virtues independent of the problem we're solving. — Tim Gunn

The best teachers become the best teachers by being their own best students. — Laurie Gray

The Assembly passed a budget that makes the right choices for young students across the state by helping schools avoid cutting essential educational programs, laying off teachers and increasing local property taxes. Without a sound investment in our children and their education, New York would face crumbling school buildings, overcrowded classrooms, and few opportunities to excel. — Jose Peralta

It is not possible to spend any prolonged period visiting public school classrooms without being appalled by the mutilation visible everywhere - mutilation of spontaneity, of joy in learning, or pleasure in creating, or sense of self ... Because adults take the schools so much for granted, they fail to appreciate what grim, joyless places most American schools are [they are much the same in most countries], how oppressive and petty are the rules by which they are governed, how intellectually sterile and esthetically barren the atmosphere, what an appalling lack of civility obtains on the part of teachers and principals, what contempt they unconsciously display for students as students. — John Holt

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

His lectures were always well attended, and not just because he imparted so much wisdom and knowledge: he also managed to do it with humour. It had taken Danny some time to realize that the professor enjoyed provoking discussion and argument by offering up outrageous statements to see what reaction he would arouse from his students. — Jeffrey Archer

Teachers are expendable, overworked, underpaid, and many times disrespected by students, parents and higher-ups. Nonetheless, these teachers still show up because there are some who are teachers indeed. — Monica Johnson

Teachers make a difference, and we would serve our students better by focusing on attracting and retaining the quality teachers by raising teacher pay. — Jeb Bush

We have created a culture of reading poverty in which a vicious cycle of aliteracy has the potential to devolve into illiteracy for many students. By allowing students to pass through our classrooms without learning to love reading, we are creating adults (who then become parents and teachers) who don't read much. They may be capable of reading well enough to perform academic and informational reading, but they do not love to read and have few life reading habits to model for children. — Donalyn Miller

People - teachers, other students, parents - constantly made offhand comments that didn't mean much to them, but I read something else in their words. A hidden language that told me I was different. Or maybe I was so aware of my own difference that I was just looking to be offended by other people's words. — Aditi Khorana

Teachers often fail students by complimenting the successful students and ignoring those who do not prove as successful. Teachers need to embrace and praise all children. — Asa Don Brown

Henry David Thoreau, Susan B. Anthony, W. E. B. DuBois, and Lyndon B. Johnson are just a few of the famous Americans who taught. They resisted the fantasy of educators as saints or saviors, and understood teaching as a job in which the potential for children's intellectual transcendence and social mobility, though always present, is limited by real-world concerns such as poor training, low pay, inadequate supplies, inept administration, and impoverished students and families. These teachers' stories, and those of less well-known teachers, propel this history forward and help us understand why American teaching has evolved into such a peculiar profession, one attacked and admired in equal proportion. — Dana Goldstein