The heart has its reasons; it’s the mind that’s suspect.
BEL KAUFMAN“Language Arts Dept.” is the English office; “literature based on child’s reading level and experiential background” means that’s all they’ve got in the Book Room; “non-academic-minded” is a delinquent; and “It has come to my attention” means you’re in trouble.
More Bel Kaufman Quotes
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Love is the ultimate giving, an expression of one’s best self.
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A teacher is frequently the only adult in the pupil’s environment who treats him with respect.
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I so enjoy being old because for the first time I don’t have to do anything-work, teach, study. I feel very good about myself-and at my age I can say no to anything now if I don’t want to do it. What a liberating word.
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My mother, for example, has the pleasant notion that my day consists of nodding graciously to the rustle of starched curtsies and a chorus of respectful voices bidding me good morning.
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The clerical work is par for the course. “Keep on file in numerical order” means throw in wastebasket. You’ll soon learn the language.
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Children are the true connoisseurs. What’s precious to them has no price, only value.
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Education is not a product: mark, diploma, job, money-in that order; it is a process, a never-ending one.
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Education can’t make us all leaders, but it can teach us which leader to follow.
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I suggest just Good and Bad at the end of the term on report cards. Or maybe nothing. Frank Allen
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And that’s it; that’s why I want to teach; that’s the one and only compensation: to make a permanent difference in the life of a child.
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I feel no different than I felt at 99, 98 or 97. Just because you live a long time, you get all this attention. Just because you survived? Of course, I survived a lot.
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I’ll never retire as long as I live—that’s like retiring from life! I’ll never stop writing, teaching, lecturing. If you’re in good health, living is exciting on its own.
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Mythology is studied in the school system because most of us come from it.
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One of my students had written wistfully of a dream-school that would have “windows with trees in them.
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Learning is a process of mutual discovery for teacher and pupil. Keep an open mind to their unexpected responses.
BEL KAUFMAN