The clerical work is par for the course. “Keep on file in numerical order” means throw in wastebasket. You’ll soon learn the language.
BEL KAUFMANTime collapses and expands like an erratic accordion.
More Bel Kaufman Quotes
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To the young, cliches seem freshly minted.
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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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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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One of my students had written wistfully of a dream-school that would have “windows with trees in them.
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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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I had used my sense of humor; I had called it proportion, perspective. But perspective is distance.
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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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Children are the true connoisseurs. What’s precious to them has no price, only value.
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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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Time collapses and expands like an erratic accordion.
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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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Mythology is studied in the school system because most of us come from it.
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… good teachers, like Tolstoy’s happy families, are alike everywhere.
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Never mind the cream; it will always rise to the top. It’s the skim milk that needs good teachers.
BEL KAUFMAN