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“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

Education is not a product: mark, diploma, job, money-in that order; it is a process, a never-ending one.
BEL KAUFMAN

Education Jobs Teaching
To the young, cliches seem freshly minted.
BEL KAUFMAN

Cliche Language Young
Love is the ultimate giving, an expression of one’s best self.
BEL KAUFMAN

Expression Love Self
Time collapses and expands like an erratic accordion.
BEL KAUFMAN

Collapse Erratic Time
People ate bread made of the shells of peas because there was no flour.
BEL KAUFMAN

Bread People Shells
I like the word OLD. Not senior, that’s for proms. Older? Older than whom? ‘Old’ is honorable and ripe
BEL KAUFMAN

Honorable Prom Senior
… good teachers, like Tolstoy’s happy families, are alike everywhere.
BEL KAUFMAN

Good Teacher Teaching
The heart has its reasons; it’s the mind that’s suspect.
BEL KAUFMAN

Heart Mind Reason
Learning is a process of mutual discovery for teacher and pupil. Keep an open mind to their unexpected responses.
BEL KAUFMAN

Discovery Mind Teacher
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
I so enjoy being old because for the first time I don’t have to do anything-work, teach, study. I feel very good about myself-and at my age I can say no to anything now if I don’t want to do it. What a liberating word.
BEL KAUFMAN

Age Firsts Want
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
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

Morning Sleep Writing
“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
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
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

“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.

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“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.

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Popular Authors

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