Syllabus Quotes

I teach a non-fiction writing class at New York University, and one of my great pleasures is deciding on the syllabus. ~ Susan Orlean

Women's studies needed a syllabus and so invented a canon overnight. It puffed up clunky, mundane contemporary women authors into Oz-like, skywriting dirigibles. Our best women students are being force-fed an appalling diet of cant, drivel and malarkey. ~ Camille Paglia

What I envy most about you and everyone else heading back to school is the certainty of it all. You've got a prescribed set of requirements to guide you through the next few years. Focus your energy on the completion of those assignments and you'll succeed. Guaranteed. Where's my syllabus to guide me through life? ~ Megan McCafferty

I wasn't sure I would ever be able to deal with the world. It seemed too big and demanding and there was no fixed syllabus. ~ Jerry Pinto

When I was 16, I was taught by a wonderful teacher who let me ignore the Greek syllabus and just read Homer. ~ Alice Oswald

You are yet to catch up with the real world if you've never studied any concepts outside the school syllabus or read any books beside the texts books school forced you to read. Most people are just programmed not educated ~ Nicky Verd

She didn't stalk after him, or look predatory in her approach, but he could tell she wanted something from him, and it wasn't a new copy of the syllabus. ~ Josie Leigh

Religion is not a fractional thing that can be doled out in fixed weekly or daily measures as one among various subjects in the school syllabus. It is the truth of our complete being, the consciousness of our personal relationship with the infinite; it is the true center of gravity of our life. This we can attain during our childhood by daily living in a place where the truth of the spiritual world is not obscured by a crowd of necessities assuming artificial importance; where life is simple, surrounded by fullness of leisure, by ample space and pure air and profound peace of nature; and where men live with a perfect faith in the eternal life before them. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

It's a red letter day, too: the new set of science textbooks has
finally arrived.
This may not seem much to you but I feel like bringing in
champagne to celebrate or asking the Head for a half day's holiday.
In the past, we have shared one dirty, dog-eared textbook between
two or even three children and it's a book which doesn't even cover
the right topics for our syllabus.
These new ones are written by the people who set the exam, so
they must cover the relevant stuff.
The Head of Department arrives carrying the books and hands
them out to the kids, handling them with great reverence.
'These books are brand new,' he intones solemnly, placing one
neatly on my desk. 'They must be treated with great respect and care
so that others may use them in the future. ~ Frank Chalk

During the Government's recent overhaul of GCSEs, I was asked to join a consultative group advising on the English Literature syllabus. It quickly became clear that the minister wanted to prescribe two Shakespeare plays for every 16-year-old in the land. I argued, to the contrary, that there should be one Shakespeare play and one play by anybody except Shakespeare. It cannot be in Shakespeare's interest for teenagers to associate him with compulsion, for his plays and his alone to have the dreaded status of set books. ~ Jonathan Bate

It wasn't until my teenage years that a book really left a mark, and that was George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four.' It was on the syllabus at school when I was about 16, and I went on to read more of his books. It was the height of the Cold War, so a lot of the messages really resonated at the time. ~ John Niven

Anyhow, high school is just…The. Worst."

"Funny that you became a high school teacher, then," I say, and she laughs again.

"Something I should talk to my therapist about. Speaking of which, you could speak to the school counselor if you want. We have a psychiatrist on staff. A life coach too."

"Seriously?"

"I know, right? Finding ways to justify the tuition. Anyhow, if not them, feel free to come talk to me anytime. Students like you are the reason I chose to teach."

"Thanks."

"By the way, I look forward to your and Ethan's 'Waste Land' paper. You're two of my brightest students. I have great expectations." Dickens is next on the syllabus. A literary pun. No wonder Mrs. Pollack was destroyed in high school.

"We intend to reach wuthering heights," I say, and as I walk by, she reaches her hand up, and I can't help it - dorks unite! nerd power! - I give her a high five on my way out. ~ Julie Buxbaum

Economists and psychologists get confused when they are asked 'out of syllabus' questions by life! ~ Saurabh Sharma

No, but it was a close call. Brought you something."
"Turtle pee?"
Cam laughed and shook his head as he reached into his backpack. "Sorry to let you down, but no." He pulled out papers stapled together. "It's a syllabus. I know. Thrilling shit right here. ~ J. Lynn

Rohinton Mistry's celebrated novel 'Such a Long Journey' was pulled off the syllabus of Mumbai University because local extremists objected to its content. ~ Salman Rushdie

It was these Prussian schools that introduced many of the features we now take for granted. There was teaching by year group rather than by ability, which made sense if the aim was to produce military recruits rather than rounded citizens. There was formal pedagogy, in which children sat at rows of desks in front of standing teachers, rather than, say, walking around together in the ancient Greek fashion. There was the set school day, punctuated by the ringing of bells. There was a predetermined syllabus, rather than open-ended learning. There was the habit of doing several subjects in one day, rather than sticking to one subject for more than a day. These features make sense, argues Davies, if you wish to mould people into suitable recruits for a conscript army to fight Napoleon. ~ Matt Ridley

Czar Nicholas the Second was overthrown by Lenin in 1917."
I blink in surprise. "Yes," I say, "he was."
"And do you think I want to know that? IT's not even on your exam syllabus. I never had to know that. So now it's your turn to pick up a few pairs of shoes and make ooh and aah sounds for me becuase Jo ate prawns and she's allergic and she got sick and couldn't come and I'm not sitting on a bus on my own for five hours, OK?"
Nat takes a deep breath and I look at my hands in shame. I am a selfish, selfish person. I am also a very sparkly person; my hands are covered in gold glitter. ~ Holly Smale

Life is an exam where the syllabus is unknown and question papers are not set. Nor are there model answer papers. ~ Sudha Murty

Parrot like an African Grey. Your job, when sitting the
exam, is not to display learning, your job is to regurgitate
whatever you were told or read in the syllabus. Regardless
of what you think about what you were told, your job is to
repeat it back.The "Dear Evil Tester" Letters
11
For multiple choice: don't think "what is the right answer?",
instead think "what do they think is the right answer?"

Evil Tester answering "Do you have any tips on taking the {insert
nominated certification board name here}
certification exam? ~ Alan Richardson

On the last day, when the general examination takes place, there will be no question at all on the text of Aristotle, the aphorisms of Hippocrates, or the paragraphs of Justinian. Charity will be the whole syllabus. ~ Robert Bellarmine

Is the professor who insists we read Ernest Hemingway again instead of Gertrude Stein "obsessing"? Because although I did a BA in English, an MFA in Poetry, and a year's worth of a PhD, Stein was an author I had to discover on my own. She wasn't on the syllabus anywhere in all that time. ~ Laura Mullen

I do see why Nikki likes the novel, as it's written so well, but her liking it makes me worry now that Nikki doesn't really believe in silver linings. Because she says The Great Gatsby is the greatest novel ever written by an American, and yet it ends so sadly. One thing's for sure. Nikki is going to be very proud of me when I tell her I finally read her favorite book. Here's another surprise: I'm going to read all the novels on her American Literature class syllabus, just to make her proud. To let her know that I am really interested in what she loves. ~ Matthew Quick

The teacher's task is not a small easy one! She has to prepare a huge amount of knowledge to satisfy the child's mental hunger. She is not like the ordinary teacher, limited by a syllabus. The needs of the child are clearly more difficult to answer. ~ Maria Montessori

They put exclusively black history in the syllabus. Is there a difference between a black history of the world and a proper history? They say children must read black novels. Does a novel have a skin colour? ~ Imraan Coovadia