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Words of Wisdom on TeachersIn developing our seminars and keynote presentations, we are fortunate to run across many words of wisdom. If you need a refreshing thought, idea, slogan, or profound nugget for an upcoming meeting, presentation, or lunch room bulletin board, take a look at the following words of wisdom on teachers. Don't miss our other categories of Words of Wisdom. 
Random Thoughts on TeachersIf a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in his office
at one time, all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn't
want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or
dentist, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence
for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher's
job. Modern cynics and skeptics see no harm in paying those
to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is
paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing. The best teachers teach from the heart, not from the book. Teaching is the profession that teaches all the other
professions. The object of education is to prepare the young to educate
themselves throughout their lives. Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress
in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource. The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter
the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your
mind. Education is the best provision for the journey to old
age. Bitter are the roots of study, but how sweet their fruit. I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher
for living well. The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains.
The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an
open one. In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work.
It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years. The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who
tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you
with a sharp stick called truth. Teachers are expected to reach unattainable goals with
inadequate tools. The miracle is that at times they accomplish this impossible
task. None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves
up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody (a parent, a teacher,
an Ivy League crony or a few nuns) bent down and helped us pick up our
boots. The good teacher makes the poor student good and the good
student superior. The task of the excellent teacher is to stimulate "apparently
ordinary" people to unusual effort. The tough problem is not in identifying
winners: it is in making winners out of ordinary people. Who dares to teach must never cease to learn. When you teach your son, you teach your son's son.
Good teachers are costly, but bad teachers cost more. A good teacher is one who makes himself progressively
unnecessary. A good teacher is like a candle: it consumes itself to
light the way for others. A teacher's purpose is not to create students in his own
image, but to develop students who can create their own image. A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his
influence stops. Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than
a giving of right answers. We think of the effective teachers we have had over the
years with a sense of recognition, but those who have touched our humanity
we remember with a deep sense of gratitude. The job of an educator is to teach students to see the
vitality in themselves. To teach is to learn twice. When asked what learning was the most necessary, he said,
"Not to unlearn what you have learned!" Education ... beyond all other devices of human origin,
is a great equalizer of conditions of men―the balance wheel of the
social machinery ... It does better than to disarm the poor of their hostility
toward the rich; it prevents being poor. The critical factor is not class size but rather the nature
of the teaching as it affects learning. The task of the excellent teacher is to stimulate "apparently
ordinary" people to unusual effort. The tough problem is not in identifying
winners: it is in making winners out of ordinary people. I like a teacher who gives you something to take home
to think about besides homework. Often, when I am reading a good book, I stop and thank
my teacher. That is, I used to, until she got an unlisted number. Teaching is the greatest act of optimism. |
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