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 KAUFMANWhen giving comes directly from the heart, it can never disappoint or embarrass.
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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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.
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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.
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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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Education can’t make us all leaders, but it can teach us which leader to follow.
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Education is not a product: mark, diploma, job, money-in that order; it is a process, a never-ending one.
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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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A teacher is frequently the only adult in the pupil’s environment who treats him with respect.
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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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Laughter keeps you healthy. You can survive by seeing the humor in everything. Thumb your nose at sadness; turn the tables on tragedy.
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To the young, cliches seem freshly minted.
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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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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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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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Learning is a process of mutual discovery for teacher and pupil. Keep an open mind to their unexpected responses.
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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.
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The heart has its reasons; it’s the mind that’s suspect.
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… good teachers, like Tolstoy’s happy families, are alike everywhere.
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When giving comes directly from the heart, it can never disappoint or embarrass.
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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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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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People ate bread made of the shells of peas because there was no flour.
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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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Love is the ultimate giving, an expression of one’s best self.
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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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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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