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 KAUFMANTo the young, cliches seem freshly minted.
More Bel Kaufman Quotes
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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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“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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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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… good teachers, like Tolstoy’s happy families, are alike everywhere.
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People ate bread made of the shells of peas because there was no flour.
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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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When giving comes directly from the heart, it can never disappoint or embarrass.
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To the young, cliches seem freshly minted.
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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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Education is not a product: mark, diploma, job, money-in that order; it is a process, a never-ending one.
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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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Education can’t make us all leaders, but it can teach us which leader to follow.
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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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Time collapses and expands like an erratic accordion.
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Mythology is studied in the school system because most of us come from it.
BEL KAUFMAN