The clerical work is par for the course. “Keep on file in numerical order” means throw in wastebasket. You’ll soon learn the language.
BEL KAUFMANNever mind the cream; it will always rise to the top. It’s the skim milk that needs good teachers.
More Bel Kaufman Quotes
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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.
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.
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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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… good teachers, like Tolstoy’s happy families, are alike everywhere.
BEL KAUFMAN -
I suggest just Good and Bad at the end of the term on report cards. Or maybe nothing. Frank Allen
BEL KAUFMAN -
Never mind the cream; it will always rise to the top. It’s the skim milk that needs good teachers.
BEL KAUFMAN -
To the outside world, of course, this job is a cinch: 9 to 3, five days a week, two months’ summer vacation with pay, all legal holidays, prestige and respect.
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Mythology is studied in the school system because most of us come from it.
BEL KAUFMAN -
Children are the true connoisseurs. What’s precious to them has no price, only value.
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Best marks go to cheaters and memorizers. Marks depend on memorizing and not on real knowledge. When you cram into your head for a test you may get a high mark but forget it the next day. That’s not an education.
BEL KAUFMAN -
I am writing this during my lunch period, because I need to reach towards the outside world of sanity, because I am overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the clerical work still to be done, and because at this hour of the morning normal ladies are still sleeping.
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You can’t laugh and be angry, you can’t laugh and feel sad, you can’t laugh and feel envious.
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When giving comes directly from the heart, it can never disappoint or embarrass.
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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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The heart has its reasons; it’s the mind that’s suspect.
BEL KAUFMAN






