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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

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

Expression Love Self
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 like the word OLD. Not senior, that’s for proms. Older? Older than whom? ‘Old’ is honorable and ripe
BEL KAUFMAN

Honorable Prom Senior
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

Long Teaching Writing
One of my students had written wistfully of a dream-school that would have “windows with trees in them.
BEL KAUFMAN

Dream School Tree
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.
BEL KAUFMAN

Building Good Moning Notion
Mythology is studied in the school system because most of us come from it.
BEL KAUFMAN

Mythology School System
I had used my sense of humor; I had called it proportion, perspective. But perspective is distance.
BEL KAUFMAN

Distance Perspective Sense Of Humor
Education can’t make us all leaders, but it can teach us which leader to follow.
BEL KAUFMAN

Knowledge Leader School
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

Different Inspiring Long
To the young, cliches seem freshly minted.
BEL KAUFMAN

Cliche Language Young
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
Time collapses and expands like an erratic accordion.
BEL KAUFMAN

Collapse Erratic Time
… good teachers, like Tolstoy’s happy families, are alike everywhere.
BEL KAUFMAN

Good Teacher Teaching
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
“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

Book Experimental Level Mindset

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 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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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