… good teachers, like Tolstoy’s happy families, are alike everywhere.
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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If a teacher wants to know something why doesn’t she look it up herself instead of making we students do it? We benefit ourselves more by listening to her, after all she’s the teacher!
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The preciousness of every moment is emphasized with every tick of the clock. Isn’t it a magnificent day today?
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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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“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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Education can’t make us all leaders, but it can teach us which leader to follow.
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Learning is a process of mutual discovery for teacher and pupil. Keep an open mind to their unexpected responses.
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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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When giving comes directly from the heart, it can never disappoint or embarrass.
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Mythology is studied in the school system because most of us come from it.
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“Let it be a challenge to you” means you’re stuck with it; “interpersonal relationships” is a fight between kids; “ancillary civic agencies for supportive discipline” means call the cops.
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I had used my sense of humor; I had called it proportion, perspective. But perspective is distance.
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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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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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To the young, cliches seem freshly minted.
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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.
BEL KAUFMAN