“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 KAUFMANI 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.
More Bel Kaufman Quotes
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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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I suggest just Good and Bad at the end of the term on report cards. Or maybe nothing. Frank Allen
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Education is not a product: mark, diploma, job, money-in that order; it is a process, a never-ending one.
BEL KAUFMAN -
To the young, cliches seem freshly minted.
BEL KAUFMAN -
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 -
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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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 -
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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Time collapses and expands like an erratic accordion.
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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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“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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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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Mythology is studied in the school system because most of us come from it.
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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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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.
BEL KAUFMAN