Never mind the cream; it will always rise to the top. It’s the skim milk that needs good teachers.
BEL KAUFMANThe clerical work is par for the course. “Keep on file in numerical order” means throw in wastebasket. You’ll soon learn the language.
More Bel Kaufman Quotes
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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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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 -
Children are the true connoisseurs. What’s precious to them has no price, only value.
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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 -
… good teachers, like Tolstoy’s happy families, are alike everywhere.
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To the young, cliches seem freshly minted.
BEL KAUFMAN -
The heart has its reasons; it’s the mind that’s suspect.
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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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Education can’t make us all leaders, but it can teach us which leader to follow.
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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 -
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.
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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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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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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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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