When giving comes directly from the heart, it can never disappoint or embarrass.
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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Education is not a product: mark, diploma, job, money-in that order; it is a process, a never-ending one.
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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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And that’s it; that’s why I want to teach; that’s the one and only compensation: to make a permanent difference in the life of a child.
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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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“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 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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A teacher is frequently the only adult in the pupil’s environment who treats him with respect.
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The clerical work is par for the course. “Keep on file in numerical order” means throw in wastebasket. You’ll soon learn the language.
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People ate bread made of the shells of peas because there was no flour.
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Children are the true connoisseurs. What’s precious to them has no price, only value.
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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.
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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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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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To the young, cliches seem freshly minted.
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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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Education can’t make us all leaders, but it can teach us which leader to follow.
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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.
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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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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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Time collapses and expands like an erratic accordion.
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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 like the word OLD. Not senior, that’s for proms. Older? Older than whom? ‘Old’ is honorable and ripe
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… good teachers, like Tolstoy’s happy families, are alike everywhere.
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“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.
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Learning is a process of mutual discovery for teacher and pupil. Keep an open mind to their unexpected responses.
BEL KAUFMAN