I had used my sense of humor; I had called it proportion, perspective. But perspective is distance.
BEL KAUFMANLaughter keeps you healthy. You can survive by seeing the humor in everything. Thumb your nose at sadness; turn the tables on tragedy.
More Bel Kaufman Quotes
-
-
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.
BEL KAUFMAN -
Education can’t make us all leaders, but it can teach us which leader to follow.
BEL KAUFMAN -
Learning is a process of mutual discovery for teacher and pupil. Keep an open mind to their unexpected responses.
BEL KAUFMAN -
Education is not a product: mark, diploma, job, money-in that order; it is a process, a never-ending one.
BEL KAUFMAN -
Laughter keeps you healthy. You can survive by seeing the humor in everything. Thumb your nose at sadness; turn the tables on tragedy.
BEL KAUFMAN -
Love is the ultimate giving, an expression of one’s best self.
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.
BEL KAUFMAN -
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 -
… good teachers, like Tolstoy’s happy families, are alike everywhere.
BEL KAUFMAN -
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 -
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 -
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 suggest just Good and Bad at the end of the term on report cards. Or maybe nothing. Frank Allen
BEL KAUFMAN -
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 -
To the young, cliches seem freshly minted.
BEL KAUFMAN