“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 KAUFMANBest 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.
More Bel Kaufman Quotes
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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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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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Children are the true connoisseurs. What’s precious to them has no price, only value.
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I like the word OLD. Not senior, that’s for proms. Older? Older than whom? ‘Old’ is honorable and ripe
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Love is the ultimate giving, an expression of one’s best self.
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Time collapses and expands like an erratic accordion.
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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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Never mind the cream; it will always rise to the top. It’s the skim milk that needs good teachers.
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People ate bread made of the shells of peas because there was no flour.
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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.
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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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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.
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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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… good teachers, like Tolstoy’s happy families, are alike everywhere.
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I had used my sense of humor; I had called it proportion, perspective. But perspective is distance.
BEL KAUFMAN