Culturally Relevant Teaching Quotes

(on teaching writing)
So many writers come to class with one question dominant in their mind, 'How do I make a living from this?' It's a fair enough question and one I always try to answer well - but it saddens me that it so often overshadows the more relevant questions of 'why am I writing' and 'what am I saying' and 'how do I keep it honest. ~ Celine Kiernan

When female stories are muted, we are teaching our kids that their dignity is second class and the historical accounts of their lives [are] less relevant. This lowered value carries over when women face sexual objectification and systemic brutalization from inside and outside the community. ~ Aurin Squire

We're so busy broadcasting our latest cultural disdain that we scantly notice anything we enjoy. 'Oh man, this Rebecca Black kid is terrible! Let's laugh at her!' has become more culturally relevant than, 'I really love this new Bilal record.' ~ Patrick Stump

Or is it the opposite-that the US has moved so far and so fast toward cultural permissiveness that we've reached a kind of apsidal point? It might be instructive to try seeing things from the perspective of, say, a God-fearing hard-working rural-Midwestern military vet. It's not that hard. Imagine gazing through his eyes at the world of MTV and the content of video games, at the gross sexualization of children's fashions, at Janet Jackson flashing her aureole on what's supposed to be a holy day. Imagine you're him having to explain to your youngest what oral sex is and what it's got to do with a US president. Ads for penis enlargers and Hot Wet Sluts are popping up out of nowhere on your family's computer. Your kids' school is teaching them WWII and Vietnam in terms of Japanese internment and the horrors of My Lai. Homosexuals are demanding holy matrimony; your doctor's moving away because he can't afford the lawsuit insurance; illegal aliens want driver's licenses; Hollywood elites are bashing America and making millions from it; the president's ridiculed for reading his Bible; priests are diddling kids left and right. Shit, the country's been directly attacked, and people aren't supporting our commander in chief.

Assume for a moment that it's not silly to see things this man's way. What cogent, compelling, relevant message can the center and left offer him? Can we bear to admit that we've actually helped set him up to hear "We 're better than they are" not as twi ~ David Foster Wallace

Bring relevance to the people before teaching them to be believers ~ Sunday Adelaja

Teaching is not only about places, things, and concepts; teaching is totally encompassed within the confines of humanity. It's about people and interaction. It's all about caring and sharing!"

"Teaching is not merely about taking the top off the bottle of ignorance and filling it to the brim with knowledge. Meaningful lessons and relevant teaching can only happen through the sharing of lives from a human perspective. ~ Lanny K. Cook

There is something else about memory, something Thomas hadn't brought up. It's not a video recording. It's subjective. It's a culturally relevant account of what happened. It doesn't matter if it's accurate; it matters if it's important in some way to you. If it teaches you something you need to learn. ~ Jodi Picoult

What does this have to do with me?" It was interesting history, but she didn't know why it was relevant. "Why did the West want Windwalkers?" Lord Ophain returned her question with a question. She was beginning to see where Aldrik got his teaching style from. ~ Elise Kova

Mis-information is rampant in this great age of mass-information. While we have more access to learning than ever before in the history of the world, we're actually getting dumber it seems. The amount of (mis)information at everyone's fingertips has lured us into a false sense of knowing. Whether it be information about science, politics, or theology, our society is suffering from an inability to research, process, filter, and apply. At the same time we seem entirely oblivious to the zeitgeist (spirit of the age) that is nihilistic and libertine, making everything relative and subjective. And Satan himself rushes to blur our vision, stirring up the dust of confusion. The church must respond by teaching the critical faculties of logic and spiritual discernment, embedded in a cohesive framework of fides quaerens intellectum (faith seeking understanding). We must obtain a reasonable faith that is consistent with historic Christianity and relevant for our post-modern age. Otherwise, those rejecting the blatant errors of religious fundamentalism will be susceptible to every wind of false doctrine and repackaged heresy imaginable. They will leave the orthodox faith and accept something that vaguely resembles Christianity, but in reality is a vile concoction of demonic lies. ~ David D. Flowers

If I scribbled a few words on a cocktail napkin and showed it to my family, they'd proclaim it astonishing and more culturally relevant than the Bible. ~ Marisha Pessl

And this is also what he takes Christian doctrine, in all its complexity, to be centrally about, that is, teaching an attitude rather than a set of propositions. Call it joyous openness to life. What's not relevant about that? ~ George Pattison

The basic question 'will I obey Christ 's teaching?' is rarely taken as a serious issue. For example, to take one of Jesus' commands, that is relevant to contemporary life, I don't know of any church that actually teaches a church how to bless people who curse them, yet this is a clear command. ~ Dallas Willard

Is this his first year teaching?" She nodded toward the window.
"How did you guess?" Holiday sighed. "He was recommended by a friend of a friend. He's not so bad when it's one on one. I hope you guys don't chew him up and spit him out."
Kylie grinned. "Perry might consider it."
Holiday frowned. "Promise me you'll not let that happen. He really seems like a nice guy and I think he'll make an excellent teacher. I'd appreciate it if you'd sort of take him under your wing."
Kylie chuckled. "Again, Perry might do that. ~ C.C. Hunter

I wonder what it means about American literary culture and its transmission when I consider the number of American poets who earn their living teaching creative writing in universities. I've ended up doing that myself. ~ Marilyn Hacker

Jewish fundamentalism is teaching that Jews can fight with guns and with civil war, against being relocated off the West Bank, and disobey the orders of their government. That is the call to jihad, to several kinds of jihad. ~ Arthur Hertzberg

I realized that searching for a mentor has become the professional equivalent of waiting for Prince Charming. We all grew up on the fairy tale "Sleeping Beauty," which instructs young women that if they just wait for their prince to arrive, they will be kissed and whisked away on a white horse to live happily ever after. Now young women are told that if they can just find the right mentor, they will be pushed up the ladder and whisked away to the corner office to live happily ever after. Once again, we are teaching women to be too dependent on others. ~ Sheryl Sandberg

With the increasing demand for holistic health care and the 'green revolution', the demand for aromatherapy will increase, and hopefully we will reach the point where medical doctors incorporate it into their repertoire. It will become routine for doctors to send culture samples to the pharmacist for testing, and identify the relevant aromatherapy for the patient. The stress-relieving properties associated with aromatherapy make it an indispensable part of health care. ~ Robert Tisserand

In the New Testament this distinction is drawn very clearly; certain people only are set apart and called upon to deliver the message, as it were, on behalf of the Church in an official manner. That act is confined to the elders, and only to some of them - the teaching elders, the elder who has received the gift of teaching, the pastors and the teachers. It is Testament was confined to the Apostles and these others. It is clear that the preaching in the New Testament was confined to the Apostles and the prophets and the evangelists and these others. ~ Anonymous

The public at large have learned to understand, and I am afraid a whole generation of economists have been teaching, that government has the power in the short run by increasing the quantity of money rapidly to relieve all kinds of economic evils, especially to reduce unemployment. Unfortunately this is true so far as the short run is concerned. The fact is, that such expansions of the quantity of money which seems to have a short run beneficial effect, become in the long run the cause of a much greater unemployment. But what politician can possibly care about long run effects if in the short run he buys support? ~ Friedrich Hayek

The thing I loved the most - and still love the most about teaching - is that you can connect with an individual or a group, and see that individual or group exceed their limits. ~ Mike Krzyzewski

If thou would'st have that stream of hard-earn'd knowledge, of Wisdom heaven-born, remain sweet running waters, thou should'st not leave it to become a stagnant pond. ~ H. P. Blavatsky

Farsighted theologians are now working to mine the eternal metal from the teachings of Jesus and to forge it for all time. ~ Max Planck

It must be admitted that scientists today take little interest in philosophy of science.... It is not an indication that philosophical issues are no longer relevant. Rather, it is a consequence of the increasingly specialized nature of science, and of the polarization between the sciences and humanities that characterizes the modern education system. ~ Samir Okasha

Home-schooled students are able to successfully adapt emotionally, interpersonally, and academically to their first, and most challenging, semester in college. That is probably because, having had the consistent teaching and support of a family and a community, they have developed strengths and convictions that provide a bridge over the troubled waters of a multitude of challenges and temptations. ~ Laura Schlessinger

Psychology saves us from mistakes. It makes us more clear as to what we are about. We gain confidence in respect to any method which we are using as soon as we believe that it has theory as well as practice at its back. ~ William James

You cannot save everyone. Some people are going to destroy themselves no matter how much you try to help them. ~ Bryant McGill

Culturally, it is commonplace for African women to work. ~ Richard Attias

The world is full of people who have lost faith: politicians who have lost faith in politics, social workers who have lost faith in social work, schoolteachers who have lost faith in teaching and, for all I know, policemen who have lost faith in policing and poets who have lost faith in poetry. It's a condition of faith that it gets lost from time to time, or at least mislaid. ~ P.D. James

It is because nobody has been teaching you about hate; hence, hate has remained pure, unadulterated. When a man hatesyou, you can trust that he hates you. ~ Rajneesh

Rick Kogan comments regarding book, "1968-A Story As Relevant Today As It Was Then" on website After Hours with Rick Kogan. ~ William Natale