One of my students had written wistfully of a dream-school that would have “windows with trees in them.
BEL KAUFMANEducation is not a product: mark, diploma, job, money-in that order; it is a process, a never-ending one.
More Bel Kaufman Quotes
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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.
BEL KAUFMAN -
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 -
Time collapses and expands like an erratic accordion.
BEL KAUFMAN -
When giving comes directly from the heart, it can never disappoint or embarrass.
BEL KAUFMAN -
I had used my sense of humor; I had called it proportion, perspective. But perspective is distance.
BEL KAUFMAN -
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.
BEL KAUFMAN -
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 -
Education is not a product: mark, diploma, job, money-in that order; it is a process, a never-ending one.
BEL KAUFMAN -
“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.
BEL KAUFMAN -
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 -
You can’t laugh and be angry, you can’t laugh and feel sad, you can’t laugh and feel envious.
BEL KAUFMAN -
Education can’t make us all leaders, but it can teach us which leader to follow.
BEL KAUFMAN -
People ate bread made of the shells of peas because there was no flour.
BEL KAUFMAN -
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.
BEL KAUFMAN -
Children are the true connoisseurs. What’s precious to them has no price, only value.
BEL KAUFMAN