black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

… good teachers, like Tolstoy’s happy families, are alike everywhere.

Bel Kaufman

Children are the true connoisseurs. What’s precious to them has no price, only value.
BEL KAUFMAN

Children Connoisseurs Value
A teacher is frequently the only adult in the pupil’s environment who treats him with respect.
BEL KAUFMAN

Adult Environment Teacher
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.
BEL KAUFMAN

Morning Mother Summer
“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.
BEL KAUFMAN

Book Experimental Level Mindset
Love is the ultimate giving, an expression of one’s best self.
BEL KAUFMAN

Expression Love Self
I want to point the way to something that should forever lure them, when the TV set is broken and the movie is over and the school bell has rung for the last time.
BEL KAUFMAN

Broken Reading School
To the young, cliches seem freshly minted.
BEL KAUFMAN

Cliche Language Young
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.
BEL KAUFMAN

Building Good Moning Notion
People ate bread made of the shells of peas because there was no flour.
BEL KAUFMAN

Bread People Shells
When giving comes directly from the heart, it can never disappoint or embarrass.
BEL KAUFMAN

Heart Kindness Volunteer
I suggest just Good and Bad at the end of the term on report cards. Or maybe nothing. Frank Allen
BEL KAUFMAN

Bad End Good Suggest
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

Cheater Day Next Real
“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.
BEL KAUFMAN

Cops Fight Relationship Stuck
Time collapses and expands like an erratic accordion.
BEL KAUFMAN

Collapse Erratic Time
The heart has its reasons; it’s the mind that’s suspect.
BEL KAUFMAN

Heart Mind Reason
One of my students had written wistfully of a dream-school that would have “windows with trees in them.
BEL KAUFMAN

Dream School Tree

… good teachers, like Tolstoy’s happy families, are alike everywhere.

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… good teachers, like Tolstoy’s happy families, are alike everywhere.

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Popular Authors

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