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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.

Bel Kaufman

I had used my sense of humor; I had called it proportion, perspective. But perspective is distance.
BEL KAUFMAN

Distance Perspective Sense Of Humor
… good teachers, like Tolstoy’s happy families, are alike everywhere.
BEL KAUFMAN

Good Teacher Teaching
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
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.
BEL KAUFMAN

Long Teaching Writing
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

Different Inspiring Long
Learning is a process of mutual discovery for teacher and pupil. Keep an open mind to their unexpected responses.
BEL KAUFMAN

Discovery Mind Teacher
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!
BEL KAUFMAN

Listening Looks Teacher
“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
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 KAUFMAN

Art Children Reading
One of my students had written wistfully of a dream-school that would have “windows with trees in them.
BEL KAUFMAN

Dream School Tree
Time collapses and expands like an erratic accordion.
BEL KAUFMAN

Collapse Erratic Time
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.
BEL KAUFMAN

Children Differences Want
Mythology is studied in the school system because most of us come from it.
BEL KAUFMAN

Mythology School System
Teachers try to make us feel lower than themselves, maybe because this is because they feel lower than outside people. One teacher told me to get out of the room and never come back, which I did.
BEL KAUFMAN

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

Children Connoisseurs Value
To the young, cliches seem freshly minted.
BEL KAUFMAN

Cliche Language Young

“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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“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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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