Quotes & Sayings About Teachers Teaching

Be versed in ancient lore, and familiarize yourself with the modern; then may you become teachers. — Confucius

I believe in teaching as a real job. I don't think it's a substitute for anything else. It's been shown to me that teachers can help, and the writing today is just as good as it was when I started out. Technology hasn't changed that. — Ron Carlson

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

Act your age. Students do not look upon you as a buddy, pal, or peer. They expect you to be a mature adult ... Many young teachers have a tendency to seek popularity, resorting to tactics that can create endless problems. — Jim Brown

As a kid, I succumbed to peer pressure; I created an image of myself that was not true. But that belief system ended with the death of a close friend. It was then that I reached out for help from my father. It wasn't the teachings of The Four Agreements exactly, it was just my father's teachings in general. And because of this, I am grateful to continue my family's legacy. In this way, I say "thank you" to my family and teachers before me. — Miguel Angel Ruiz

New teachers were just a part of life, for a few days after one arrived, squawks of interest were emitted from various corners, but then they died away as the teacher was absorbed like everyone else ... before you knew it, the fresh ones seemed to have been teaching there forever too, or else they didn't last very long, and were gone before you'd gotten to know them. — Meg Wolitzer

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

Most Americans said teaching was a hard and important job, but many of them, including teachers and teaching professors, didn't seem to believe it required serious intellectual heft. — Amanda Ripley

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

We never completely escape the teachers of our childhood nor any of the patterns that formed us. — Frank Herbert

By teaching tools and problem solving instead of memorization and by hiring only teachers with master's degrees, Finland created a higher educational platform that gave its kids an advantage. That's how its school system shot to number one.* — Shane Snow

I have a hunch that little will change in the next decade because the dominant mind frame of teaching is still teachers talking, teachers controlling the flow of lessons, and teachers continually asking for more time and resources with fewer students in front of them - unless the students revolt! — Alan Bain

Master Teachers who genuinely embody an enlightened state of being never stop "doing the work". The ego is what assumes it knows enough, causing cessation of these daily practices, and therefore, Masters without attachment to ego are forever students of the Universe. The Masters attain an illuminated state of "Being" as the outcome, yet it is the consistent "doing" that promotes and maintains their enlightenment. — Alaric Hutchinson

Don't try to fix the students, fix ourselves first. The good teacher makes the poor student good and the good student superior. When our students fail, we, as teachers, too, have failed. — Marva Collins

Teaching needs an ecosystem that supports evidence-based practice. It will need better systems to disseminate the results of research more widely, but also a better understanding of research, so that teachers can be critical consumers of evidence. — Ben Goldacre

Good teachers cost a lot; but, poor teachers cost a lot more. — Evan Esar

Most subjects at universities are taught for no other purpose than that they may be re-taught when the students become teachers. — Georg C. Lichtenberg

But more classrooms and more teachers are not enough. We must seek an educational system which grows in excellence as it grows in size. This means better training for our teachers. It means preparing youth to enjoy their hours of leisure as well as their hours of labor. It means exploring new techniques of teaching, to find new ways to stimulate the love of learning and the capacity for creation. — Lyndon B. Johnson

Students never appreciate their teachers while they are learning. It is only later, when they know more of the world, that they understand how indebted they are to those who instructed them. Good teachers expect no praise or love from the young. They wait for it, and in time, it comes. — Darren Shan

Although I know very little of the Steppenwolf's life, I have all the same good reason to suppose that he was brought up by devoted but severe and very pious parents and teachers in accordance with that doctrine that makes the breaking of the will the corner-stone of education and upbringing. But in this case the attempt to destroy the personality and to break the will did not succeed. He was much too strong and hardy, too proud and spirited. Instead of destroying his personality they succeeded only in teaching him to hate himself. It was against himself that, innocent and noble as he was, he directed during his whole life the whole wealth of his fancy, the whole of his thought; and in so far as he let loose upon himself every barbed criticism, every anger and hate he could command, he was, in spite of all, a real Christian and a real martyr. — Hermann Hesse

The Jesuits were good educators, exceptional teachers. In an era and in a society where freedom of speech was not held in high regard, of course, that the discourse be focused on what they were teaching, but we were able to go beyond this framework without incurring too great a risk. — Pierre Trudeau

Police and firefighters are great, but they don't create wealth. They protect it. That's crucial. Teaching is a wonderful profession. Teachers help educate people to become good citizens so that citizens can then go create wealth. But they don't create the wealth themselves. — Rush Limbaugh

Any teaching that in any way detracts from Christ's exclusive role is by definition both wrong and ineffective. The teachers themselves are probably not denying that Christ was central to God's saving purposes. They seem rather to be arguing that certain practices must be added on in order to achieve true spiritual fulfillment. But, for Paul, in this case, addition means subtraction: one cannot "add" to Christ without, in effect, subtracting from his exclusive place in creation and in salvation history. — Douglas J. Moo

Mrs. Hanks taught that everybody's bodies were exactly the same. She was ignorant and didn't think much about things, but she was teaching her students to be ignorant too. She was teaching them the wrong thing. — Jesse Haubert

The very best thing you can be in life is a teacher, provided you are crazy in love with what you teach, and that your classes consist of eighteen students or fewer. Classes of eighteen students or fewer are a family, and feel and act like one. — Kurt Vonnegut

But remain the teacher of the young teachers. Advise and direct us, and we will be ready to learn. I will have need of you as long as I live. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Restoring prayer ... will scarcely at this date solve the grievous public school problem. Public schools are expensive and massive centers for cultural and ideological brainwashing, at which they are unfortunately far more effective than in teaching the 3 R's or in keeping simple order within the schools. Any plan to begin dismantling the public school monstrosity is met with effective opposition by the teachers' and educators' unions. Truly radical change is needed to shift education from public to unregulated private schooling, religious and secular, as well as home schooling by parents. — Murray Rothbard

Teachers have power. We may cripple them by petty economics; by Government regulations, by the foolish criticism of an uninformed press; but their power exists for good or evil ... — Winifred Holtby

The idea that you have to drop any thing that you might be interested in doing because you have to pass that test tomorrow and it's something that you're not interested in, that's just the opposite of education. It's also harming teaching, because the teachers are evaluated by the results of the test. — Noam Chomsky

Instead of standing on a stage each day, dispensing knowledge to my young charges, I should guide them as they approach their own understandings. — Donalyn Miller

Religious teachings and teachers have conditioned us to think of faith as a magic catalyst that makes God work for us. In no way does faith make God work nor does it release some kind of miracle power. Faith simply tunes into and turns on the divine flow that has always been present — Eric Butterworth

Every woman who vacates a place in the teachers' ranks and enters an unusual line of work, does two excellent things: she makes room for someone waiting for a place and helps to open a new vocation for herself and other women. — Frances E. Willard

In my youth, it was my good luck to have a few good teachers, men and women, who came into my head and lit a match. — Yann Martel

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

True teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create their
own. — Nikos Kazantzakis

The service members who defend our way of life ask very little in return, but they deserve teachers who will be as relentless in teaching their children as the military is in protecting our interests at home and abroad. — Tucker Elliot

Perhaps teachers must be good actors where lessons are concerned, but in life outside the class, we mustn't hide from our pupils our individual spirits. — Larisa Kuznetsova

When we imagine Jesus' teaching in his own time and place, W ca we cannot use profiles of teachers from our own world to understand the nature of his work. Our culture is heir to the Greek tradition, where abstract reasoning and verbal prowess are the measure of the teacher. Jesus' world was different. He communicated through word pictures, dramatic actions, metaphors, and stories. Rather than lecture about religious corruption, Jesus refers to the Pharisees as "whitewashed tombs." Rather than outline the failings of the temple, he curses a fig tree. This means that we should think of Jesus as a "metaphorical theologian" for whom drama, humor, and storytelling were all a part of his method. — Gary M. Burge

Teachers should not fear going off plan if a better learning opportunity presents itself. Plans are plans, but children are living, breathing, creative people, who deserve to have their questions answered and original ideas explored. — Adele Devine

Of course there are teachers who can teach a subject, in a set order, using predetermined phrases, but there aren't many who can adjust their teaching to the abilities and tendencies of their pupils and explain things in their own individual way. Maybe hardly any at all. — Haruki Murakami

The overwhelming number of teachers ... are unable to name or describe a theory of learning that underlies what they do. — Alfie Kohn

As much as it was like anything, magic was like a language. And like a language, textbooks and teachers treated it as an orderly system for the purposes of teaching it, but in reality it was complex and chaotic and organic. It obeyed rules only to the extent that it felt like it, and there were almost as many special cases and one-time variations as there were rules. These Exceptions were indicated by rows of asterisks and daggers and other more obscure typographical fauna which invited the reader to peruse the many footnotes that cluttered up the margins of magical reference books like Talmudic commentary. — Lev Grossman

The footballers' wives I know, they're teachers, midwives. They want to do something useful. One is working at my son's nursery, on her hands and knees, in Converse and jeans, teaching kids to count. — Louise Nurding

There are two types of teachers. The ones who teach you to use the text to find answers, and the ones who teach you to use the text to find another whole world of answers. — Anonymous

Google has made teaching more challenging because learners believe that Google is their answer. But the learners are only forced to classrooms because questions are with teachers. Will Bing become learners' teacher by providing questions? — Santosh Avvannavar

Teachers must be encouraged - I almost said 'freed', to pursue an education that strives for depth of understanding. — Howard Gardner

Old teachers never die, they just grade away. — Henny Youngman

Teachers teach because they care. Teaching young people is what they do best. It requires long hours, patience, and care. — Horace Mann

They are working hard and fast, but they are just doing what they are supposed to do. I see the same look on the faces of some of Max's teachers when Max doesn't understand something and the teacher doesn't think he will ever understand it. The teachers work hard, but you can tell that they are just doing the lesson. Not teaching the lesson. That's what the doctors look like now. They are doing the doctoring but they do not believe in the doctoring. — Matthew Dicks

Inspired teachers ... cannot be ordered by the gross from the factory. They must be discovered one by one, and brought home from the woods and swamps like orchids. They must be placed in a conservatory, not in a carpenter shop; and they must be honored and trusted. — John Jay Chapman

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

Unfortunately, parents who put a priority on saving kids from frustration and teachers who put a priority on challenging their students often butt heads, and consequently, the parent-teacher partnership has reached a breaking point. Teaching has become a push and pull between opposing forces in which parents want teachers to educate their children with increasing rigor, but reject those rigorous lessons as "too hard" or "too frustrating" for their children to endure. Parents rightly feel protective of their children's self-esteem, but teachers too often bear the brunt of parental ire. — Jessica Lahey

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

Teachers' working conditions are students' learning conditions — Diane Ravitch

I've managed to bring the backlog down to a mere sixty-eight years," she announced with some small sense of achievement. "I hope to be able to start marking the papers of pupils who are still alive by the end of the decade. — Jasper Fforde

In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something else. — Lee Iacocca

Bruner discusses the need for teachers to understand that children should want to study for study's own sake, for learnings's sake, not for the sake of good grades or examination success. The curriculum should, in other words, be interesting. (Yes, it sounds too obvious even to say, but sometimes the emphasis on content has trumped all other considerations, including that of making learning interesting.) — Gary Thomas

Teaching remains a heroic act to me, and teachers live a necessary and all-important life. We are killing their spirit with unnecessary pressure and expectation that seem forced and destructive to me. Long ago I was one of them. I still regret I was forced to leave them. My entire body of work is because of men and women like them. — Pat Conroy

Differentiated Instruction is a teaching philosophy based on the premise that teachers should adapt instruction to student differences. Rather than marching students through the curriculum lockstep, teachers should modify their instruction to meet students' varying readiness levels, learning preferences, and interests. Therefore, the teacher proactively plans a variety of ways to 'get it' and express learning. — Carol Ann Tomlinson

Nglish teachers often take a right-wrong stance. I'd rather my students take a thinking stance. — Jeff Anderson

The 1947 best-seller Modern Woman: The Lost Sex urged that spinsters be barred from teaching children on the grounds of "emotional incompetence." It was the ultimate example of the pendulum swinging - instead of prohibiting the employment of married women as teachers, society now wanted marriage to be mandatory. "A great many children have unquestionably been damaged psychologically by the spinster teacher who cannot be an adequate model of a complete woman either for boys or girls," the authors argued. — Gail Collins

Proper history teaching is being crushed under the weight of play-based pedagogy which infantilises children, teachers and our culture. — Michael Gove

We're not trying to be the only route into teaching. We do put enormous energy into understanding what differentiates the most successful teachers. — Wendy Kopp

Though I've never met a teacher who was not happy in retirement, I rarely meet one who thinks that their teaching life was not a grand way to spend a human life. The unhappy ones are the young ones, those who must teach in public schools when the whole nation seems at war with the very essence of teaching. — Pat Conroy

optimal literacy teaching and learning can only be achieved when skillful, knowledgeable, and dedicated teachers are given the freedom and latitude to use their professional judgment to make instructional decisions that enable students to achieve their full literacy potential. — Linda B. Gambrell

When I first started teaching at Berkeley in 1958, I could not announce that I was gay to anybody, though probably quite a few of my fellow teachers knew. — Thom Gunn

Forward-thinking teachers and school administrators across the country are creating a whole range of alternatives to cookie-cutter teaching and evaluation methods, such as the use of student portfolios and exhibitions in addition to conventional exams to assess students' progress. — Hillary Rodham Clinton

Given the professionalism of Michigan teachers, I think they're not teaching because of the financial rewards. — John Engler

To improve our schools, we have to humanize them and make education personal to every student and teacher in the system. Education is always about relationships. Great teachers are not just instructors and test administrators. They are mentors, coaches, motivators, and lifelong sources of inspiration to their students. Teaching is an art form. Great teachers know they have to cultivate curiosity, passion and creativity in their students. — Ken Robinson

The teachers in America need to be applauded every day because they save the lives of kids! — Rosie O'Donnell

Teaching can be compared to selling commodities. No one can sell unless someone buys ... yet there are teachers who think they have done a good day's teaching irrespective of what the pupils have learned. — John Dewey

Some kids want to know why the teachers get paid when it's the kids who have to do all the work. — Milton Berle

In a word, we may reasonably hope for the virtual abolition of education when I'm as good as you has fully had its way. All incentives to learn and all penalties for not learning will vanish.The few who might want to learn will be prevented; who are they to overtop their fellows? And anyway the teachers
or should I say, nurses?
will be far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste any time on real teaching. We shall no longer have to plan and toil to spread imperturable conceit and incurable ignorance among men. The little vermin themselves will do it for us. — C.S. Lewis

Scheffer said a new ethnic underclass of immigrants had formed, and it was much too insular, rejecting the values that knit together Dutch society and creating new, damaging social divisions. There wasn't enough insistence on immigrants adapting; teachers even questioned the relevance of teaching immigrant children Dutch history, and a whole generation of these children were being written off under a pretence of tolerance. Scheffer said there was no place in Holland for a culture that rejected the separation of church and state and denied rights to women and homosexuals. He foresaw social unrest. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

The rules of the world are changing. It is time for the rules of teaching and teachers' work to change with them. — Andy Hargreaves

To benefit from what the best teachers do, however, we must embrace a different model, one in which teaching occurs only when learning takes place. Most fundamentally, teaching in this conception is creating those conditions in which most
if not all
of our students will realize their potential to learn. That sounds like hard work, and it is a little scary because we don't have complete control over who we are, but it is highly rewarding and obtainable. — Ken Bain

Teachers need to feel they are trusted. They must be allowed some leeway to use their imagination; otherwise, teaching loses all sense of wonder and excitement. — Alan Bennett

The best teachers are the best storytellers. — Frank Smith

I loathe it when they [English teachers] are bullied by no-nothing parents or cowardly school boards. — Pat Conroy

So many teachers teach us but we shall always remember certain teachers — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Did one learn or was one shaped? — Paul Russell

It is said, in a fire, everyone runs away from it save for the fireman who run towards it. When dealing with students, be the fireman. — Patricia Sequeira Belvel

The teachers were focused on helping these students. The students benefited from hands-on teaching and a faculty who cared about them and their success in life and soon the students began to believe in themselves and the reality that they could make something of their lives. — Michael N. Castle

The teachers of this country, one may say, have its future in their hands. — William James

Many teachers think of children as immature adults. It might lead to better and more 'respectful' teaching, if we thought of adults as atrophied children. — Keith Johnstone

It would be good if teachers could genuinely understand that black English is not mistakes, it's just different English, and that what you want to do is add an additional dialect to black students' repertoire rather than teaching them out of what's thought of as a bad habit, like sloppy posture or chewing with your mouth open. — John McWhorter

They are teachers who point to their teaching or show some particular way. In all of these, there emerges an instruction, a way of living. It is not Zoroaster to whom you turn. It is Zoroaster to whom you listen. It is not Buddha who delivers you; it is his Noble Truths that instruct you. It is not Mohammed who transforms you; it is the beauty of the Koran that woos you. By contrast, Jesus did not only teach or expound His message. He was identical with His message. "In Him," say the Scriptures, "dwelt the fullness of the Godhead bodily." He did not just proclaim the truth. He said, "I am the truth." He did not just show a way. He said, "I am the Way." He did not just open up vistas. He said, "I am the door." "I am the Good Shepherd." "I am the resurrection and the life." "I am the I AM." In Him is not just an offer of life's bread. He is the bread. That is why being a Christian is not just a way of feeding and living. Following Christ begins with a way of relating and being. — Ravi Zacharias

No one likes to feel used. When the perceived focus becomes the content over the person, people feel used. When teachers are valued only for the test scores of their students, they feel used. When administrators are "successful" only when they achieve "highly effective school" status, they feel used. Eventually, "used" people lose joy in learning and teaching. Curriculum does not teach; teachers do. Standards don't encourage; administrators do. Peaceable schools value personnel and students for who they are as worthy human beings. ... If your mission statement says you care, then specific practices of care should be habits within your school. — Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz

I had assumed 'a man's character is his fate' meant if my students worked hard they would get good grades, and if they were lazy they would fail - but any idiot could have seen that interpretation. It took no thought whatsoever, and it isn't at all what Joe was trying to teach me. No, what Joe meant was this: my character shapes what my students become, and what they become is my fate. I began to see teaching in a whole new light. From that day forward, I knew everything that happened to my students would haunt me or bless me - and I began to teach as if my happiness depended on their happiness, my successes depended on their successes, and their world was the most important part of my world. — Tucker Elliot

The Pseudo-liberals monopolize the teaching jobs at many universities. Only men who agree with them are appointed as teachers and instructors of the social sciences, and only textbooks supporting their ideas are used. — Ludwig Von Mises

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.

The printed word is no longer as in demand as when I was of the age of pupils or even at the age of the teachers teaching them. — Tom Stoppard

People don't want children to know what they need to know. They want their kids to know what they ought to need to know. If you're a teacher you're in a constant battle with mildly deluded adults who think the world will get better if you imagine it is better. You want to teach about sex? Fine, but only when they're old enough to do it. You want to talk politics? Sure, but nothing modern. Religion? So long as you don't actually think about it. Otherwise some furious mob will come to your house and burn you for a witch. — Nick Harkaway

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

We need sex education in schools, but we need it at home first. We need parents to learn the names of the teachers who are teaching their children. We need families to question day-care centers, to question other children and their own as to what goes on. — Rod McKuen

Much of the cause of the teacher attrition rate is the condition under which many teachers work. "The data suggest that school staffing problems are rooted in the way schools are organized and the way the teaching occupation is treated and that lasting improvements in the quality and quantity of the teaching workforce will require improvements in the quality of the teaching job."39 — Ken Robinson

The only thing that surprises me is the characterization of teachers as lazy and greedy. Only someone with very little understanding of what teaching requires would say such a thing. — Taylor Mali

Somehow, we were passing the boundaries of language and finding clarity in shared thought, even if we were just talking about beer! — Gerry Abbey

Progressive white teachers seem to say to their black students 'Let me help you find your voice. I promise not to criticize one note as you search for your song'. But the black teachers say 'I've heard your song loud and clear. Now I want to teach you to harmonize with the rest of the world. — Lisa Delpit

Your observations and conclusions are mirrored illusions of your inner state of being, teaching you truth through falsehoods, strength through weakness and clarity through confusion. You are seeing your Self now, disguised as the world through a lens of denial, but you will soon come to realize that what you choose to deny in yourself manifests into your world. The flaws you see in your world are your most powerful teachers. — Ka Chinery