The heart has its reasons; it’s the mind that’s suspect.
BEL KAUFMANI suggest just Good and Bad at the end of the term on report cards. Or maybe nothing. Frank Allen
More Bel Kaufman Quotes
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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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Learning is a process of mutual discovery for teacher and pupil. Keep an open mind to their unexpected responses.
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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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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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To the young, cliches seem freshly minted.
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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 had used my sense of humor; I had called it proportion, perspective. But perspective is distance.
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Mythology is studied in the school system because most of us come from it.
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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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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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I like the word OLD. Not senior, that’s for proms. Older? Older than whom? ‘Old’ is honorable and ripe
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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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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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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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Children are the true connoisseurs. What’s precious to them has no price, only value.
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If a teacher wants to know something why doesn’t she look it up herself instead of making we students do it? We benefit ourselves more by listening to her, after all she’s the teacher!
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Time collapses and expands like an erratic accordion.
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Education can’t make us all leaders, but it can teach us which leader to follow.
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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.
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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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When giving comes directly from the heart, it can never disappoint or embarrass.
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Love is the ultimate giving, an expression of one’s best self.
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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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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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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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Education is not a product: mark, diploma, job, money-in that order; it is a process, a never-ending one.
BEL KAUFMAN