You can’t laugh and be angry, you can’t laugh and feel sad, you can’t laugh and feel envious.
BEL KAUFMANNever mind the cream; it will always rise to the top. It’s the skim milk that needs good teachers.
More Bel Kaufman Quotes
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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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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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Love is the ultimate giving, an expression of one’s best self.
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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.
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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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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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The heart has its reasons; it’s the mind that’s suspect.
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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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To the young, cliches seem freshly minted.
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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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Mythology is studied in the school system because most of us come from it.
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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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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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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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Education can’t make us all leaders, but it can teach us which leader to follow.
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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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The preciousness of every moment is emphasized with every tick of the clock. Isn’t it a magnificent day today?
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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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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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Learning is a process of mutual discovery for teacher and pupil. Keep an open mind to their unexpected responses.
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Time collapses and expands like an erratic accordion.
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Children are the true connoisseurs. What’s precious to them has no price, only value.
BEL KAUFMAN