Teaching Students Quotes

On Mondays and Fridays in early May, nearly 18,000 children-the equivalent of all the elementary students in suburban Glencoe, Wilmette, Glenview, Kenilworth, Winnetka, Deerfield, Highland Park and Evanston-are assigned to classes with no teacher. ~ Jonathan Kozol

Much music teaching seems more concerned with controlling the student than with encouraging the student's own impulses. ~ William Westney

modern humanist education believes in teaching students to think for themselves. It is good to know what Aristotle, Solomon and Aquinas thought about politics, art and economics; yet since the supreme source of meaning and authority lies within ourselves, it is far more important to know what you think about these matters. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

As a student I learned from wonderful teachers and ever since then I've thought everyone is a teacher. ~ Bill Moyers

Let's stop teaching to the middle and start teaching to the student. ~ Geoffrey Canada

The good teacher makes the poor student good and the good student superior. ~ Marva Collins

School does a great job of teaching students to do what we set out to teach them. It works. The problem is that what we're teaching is the wrong stuff. Here ~ Seth Godin

MindSparks has produced some of the best materials on the market for teaching students how to read and write history with intellectual integrity and depth. Rarely have I come across curriculum so useful in helping students become literate, thinking citizens. Bravo. ~ Sam Wineburg

It is sinful for students to badmouth their teachers and sinful for teachers to mislead their students. ~ Igor Babailov

Part of teaching is helping students learn how to tolerate ambiguity, consider possibilities, and ask questions that are unanswerable. ~ Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot

Education can help all Americans live longer, healthier lives. Teaching students to make healthy decisions can improve habits now and instill healthy eating habits for a lifetime. ~ Matt Cartwright

I learned that when something just has to be said to move the discussion along, or broaden it or deepen it, if I can just keep my mouth shut for five minutes a student will say it. So for me a lot of teaching is about keeping my mouth shut. ~ Greil Marcus

Policy makers and politicians want more STEM; educators want more STEAM. Both, in ways that are eerily similar, are engaging in social engineering to support an ideology. At the macro-level, in both worlds, it's all about teaching a point of view, rather than teaching students to learn. We seem hell bent on an arbitrarily linear approach to engineering a "useful" or job-securing education, from which we continue to get mixed results. ~ Henry Doss

I find that teaching and the students keep life going, and I would never accept any position in which somebody has invented a happy situation for me where I don't have to teach. Never. ~ Richard P. Feynman

I have learned that, although I am a good teacher, I am a much better student, and I was blessed to learn valuable lessons from my students on a daily basis. They taught me the importance of teaching to a student - and not to a test. ~ Erin Gruwell

Teaching students the evidence for and against Darwinism is not the same as teaching intelligent design. The U.S. Congress has officially endorsed teaching students 'the full range of scientific views' about Darwinian evolution. ~ Jonathan Wells

Stop teaching students that they are the best and the brightest. ~ David Maister

To teach successfully we must tell all we know, but only what is adaptable to the student. ~ Jean-Francois De La Harpe

In 2009, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched a massive project to study 3,000 teachers in seven cities and learn what made them effective. The five metrics that most correlated with student learning were:
1. Students in this class treat the teacher with respect.
2. My classmates behave the way my teacher wants them to.
3. Our class stays busy and doesn't waste time.
4. In this class, we learn a lot almost every day.
5. In this class, we learn to correct our mistakes. ~ Thomas Kane

Every time you have a crisis in a country you have an extreme wing coming up and proposing solutions. The way to fight them is by doing lots of work teaching people that every time these fascist systems gained power they ended up with big tragedies - lots of blood, lots of police, and lots of misery. ~ Costa-Gavras

Education in our times must try to find whatever there is in students that might yearn for completion, and to reconstruct the learning that would enable them autonomously to seek that completion. ~ Allan Bloom

The serenity produced by the contemplation and philosophy of nature is the only remedy for prejudice, superstition, and inordinate self-importance, teaching us that we are all a part of Nature herself, strengthening the bond of sympathy which should exist between ourselves and our brother man ... ~ Luther Burbank

One of our people in the Native community said the difference between white people and Indians is that Indian people know they are oppressed but don't feel powerless. White people don't feel oppressed, but feel powerless. Deconstruct that disempowerment. Part of the mythology that they've been teaching you is that you have no power. Power is not brute force and money; power is in your spirit. Power is in your soul. It is what your ancestors, your old people gave you. Power is in the earth; it is in your relationship to the earth. ~ Winona LaDuke

As you work to become a better student, remember that learning is far more important than the numbers on your transcript. I know it can be hard sometimes to remember what you're in school for. In some places, students go crazy over a tenth of a point - but this is an unhealthy and unsustainable way to manage your education. The real reason you're in school is to grow as a person and fulfill your potential. ~ Stefanie Weisman

Good students are good at all things. ~ Marissa Mayer

And so is another question that Sanderson's experience leads him to discuss: whether the mind is identical with the brain. He mentions a case of a man who died in a New York hospital, and who an autopsy revealed to have no brain, only "half a cupful of dirty water". This sounds, admittedly, like another of those absurd stories that are not worth discussing. But in the early 1980s Professor John Lourber of Sheffield University discovered a student with an IQ of 126 whose head was entirely filled with "water". A brain scan showed that the student's brain was merely an outer layer, only one millimetre thick. How can a person function with virtually no brain? Lourber, who specializes in hydrocephalis ("water on the brain") replies that he has come across many cases of perfectly normal people whose heads are filled with 95 per cent of fluid, and that 70 to 90 per cent is actually quite common. ~ Colin Wilson

This is your life and you have the right and responsibility to make good decisions for yourself. ~ Bryant McGill

I quote Frank O'Connor to my students: that when you are writing a story, at some point the story must take over. You are not going to be able to control it. I think this is true. O'Connor said he thought Joyce controls his stories too tightly - "Whoever heard of a Joyce story taking over?" he asked - and that there is a deadness about them. You have got to keep the story opened up, let the story take over at some point. ~ Peter Taylor

Teaching without talent, compassion and endurance is like an octopus on skates - there will be movement without direction. ~ Kavita Bhupta Ghosh

When social software becomes a component of formal education, students and teachers interact with one another in more meaningful ways, creating a variety of positive results. Ted Panitz (1997) details over 67 benefits from engaging in collective learning, arguing that collaborating reduces anxiety, builds self-esteem, enhances student satisfaction, and fosters positive relationships between students and faculty. ~ Jon Dron

The crudest thing I've done as a teacher was to require students to write a national anthem for their country and sing it themselves. ~ Chris Van Allsburg

The words of the Lord are found in the scriptures and the teachings of the apostles and prophets. They provide us counsel and direction that, when followed, will act like a spiritual life jacket and will help us know how to hold on with both hands. ~ M. Russell Ballard

The view implicit in my education was that the basic narrative of Christianity had long been exposed as a myth, and that opinion was now divided as to whether its ethical teaching was of present value, a division in which the main weight went against it; religion was a hobby which some people professed and others did not; at the best it was slightly ornamental, at the worst it was the province of 'complexes' and 'inhibitions'
catchwords of the decade
and of the intolerance, hypocrisy, and sheer stupidity attributed to it for centuries. ~ Evelyn Waugh

Positive social awareness among the South African educated half-caste is zero. Teaching is a mechanical job. The best way of earning a living. ~ Peter Abrahams

There is no painkiller as effective as love, no anti-depressant as soothing as cheer, no defibrillator as powerful as wisdom. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Having already funneled its students to their respective classrooms, the school's front hall was empty, its glass showcase in the same neglected spot outside the front office. ... She looked at it briefly, her eyes sweeping over the faces of students whose adult trajectories would lead them either to gloss over these moments or to spend their lives pining for their return. ~ Myla Goldberg

produced a race of heroes, so not less surely did the growth of luxury and absolutism, assisted by the narrow-mindedness of a dynasty of bigots, lose for Portugal the lofty place which her heroes had won for her. These are things well worth pondering upon and lessons well worth learning, for the great value of the study of history is in teaching such truths as these - truths which are eternal, while nations wax and wane. The ~ H. Morse Stephens

Creativity is especially expressed in the ability to make connections, to make associations, to turn things around and express them in a new way. ~ Tim Hansen

My teaching - of what is perceived to be a complex and foreign sounding religious philosophy - has become the target for people's prejudice and religious intolerance. ~ Frederick Lenz

Teaching high school in an inner-city school is not an easy task. Every teacher is responsible for 150 teenagers. The amount of work is just mind-boggling. Remember, you're not just doing a job. You have these kids' futures in your hand; you have to inspire them. ~ Tony Danza

No moral code or ethical principle, no piece of scripture or holy teaching, can be summoned to defend what we have allowed our country to become. ~ Matthew Desmond

I didn't know who Jimmy Choo was. I think Vanessa Williams was also a very big part of that, teaching me about the designers. I had no choice but to learn, and I'm glad I did. ~ Mark Indelicato

Teachers of design should help a student to find their own voice. In other words, not be a templated version of the teacher, but rather to help them [the students] unfold what they already know and can bring to the table. ~ April Greiman

We are frequently being reminded that no criticism or teaching is ever completely politically "innocent." True, but should we accept the swing to the indoctrination of an unqualifiedly negative attitude, which fosters a sense of alienation, of being a powerless victim? And should we permit a simplistic view of "power" to trigger simplistic notions of alternatives and processes of social change? ~ Louise M. Rosenblatt

I double majored in English education and theater with a musical theater minor. Teaching is the only thing that makes me as happy as performing. ~ Rob McClure

Poor teaching leads to the inevitable idea that the subject (mathematics) is only adapted to peculiar minds, when it is the one universal science and the one whose four ground-rules are taught us almost in infancy and reappear in the motions to the universe. ~ Henry John Stephen Smith

I didn't understand at the time why Vince was so interested in teaching me life lessons when all I was trying to do was get my video played. But now I think it's because he saw a little bit of himself in me. Just like me, he was a rebel who listened to no one and did whatever it took to get the job done, pissing people off with his stubbornness and drive in the process. Therefore, he was trying to teach me how to better myself instead of repeatedly getting into trouble by rubbing people the wrong way. ~ Chris Jericho

As an impoverished student I used to spend days out in Selfridges, nibbling on samples of free cheese and dousing myself with scent in the perfume department. ~ Zoe Tapper

The 'futures' and 'careers' for which American students now prepare are for the most part intellectual and moral wastelands. This chrome-plated consumers' paradise would have us grow up to be well-behaved children. But an important minority of men and women coming to the front today have shown they will die rather than be standardized, replaceable, and irrelevant. ~ Mario Savio

You already have and are; your value is intrinsic. ~ Bryant McGill

SNSD is a group of 9 girl female students. We're pretty one by one as well,but its when we're all together that we can really shine. ~ Jessica Jung

Every woman who vacates a place in the teachers' ranks and enters an unusual line of work, does two excellent things: she makes room for someone waiting for a place and helps to open a new vocation for herself and other women. ~ Frances E. Willard

As we have come to view teaching, it begins with an act of reason, continues with a process of reasoning, culminates in performances of imparting, eliciting, involving, or enticing, and is then thought about some more until the process can begin again ~ Lee S Shulman

One of the cardinal sins in our country is profanity
the taking of the name of the Lord in vain. Reverence for the name of Deity is enjoined in holy writ. Jesus made this clear when teaching His disciples to pray. He said, addressing the Father, "Hallowed be thy name: (see Matthew 6:9). Blaspheming the name of God separates man from his Creator." ~ Ezra Taft Benson

I am a teacher because teaching allows me to observe the universe at work, that moment when wakefulness suddenly occurs. ~ Frederick Lenz

A too explicit elucidation in education destroys much of the pleasure of learning. There should be room for sly hinters, masters of suggestion. ~ Theodore Roethke

Strengthen me by sympathizing with my strength not by my weakness. ~ Amos Bronson Alcott

The screams echoing through Janet's class were hard to bear. She was attempting a lecture on the Treaty of Paris while Mrs. Pachenko walked between the rows of desks insisting upon calm, raising a finger to her lips and whispering to individual students to please sit all the way down in their desks. In the back of the of the room, several kids were cheering as one of them, a young man whose shirt bore a flaming skull, stood hunched atop his desk like a motocross biker, sliding it forward in small hops. Students appear enthusiastic and are communicating well together, I wrote on the evaluation form. ~ Alissa Nutting

If we construct an economy where quantities are controlled, based on the belief there is never enough for all, then we must compete to determine the winners. We begin this with grades in the first grade. There is the presumption that competition is essential and so there must be a normal distribution of grades. All students cannot receive high marks. If I get an A, someone in the class must perform poorly. It is an early lesson in how the marketplace ideology works. In a community organized around abundance, competition will occur, but it is not built into the system as a core design element. In a neighborly culture, the abundance of resources becomes the design element ~ Walter Brueggemann

Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length make way for more modern and practical studies; but the adventurous student will always study classics, in whatever language they may be written and however ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old. To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. ~ Henry David Thoreau

More than half of my former students teach - elementary and high school, community college and university. I taught them to be passionate about literature and writing, and to attempt to translate that passion to their own students. They are rookie teachers, most likely to be laid off and not rehired, even though they are passionate. ~ Susan Straight

Foreign students add cultural value to their British peers, who need an international outlook. ~ Giles Foden

There's a specificity of language that's required in Shakespeare that most drama students in England deal with - a specificity of language that is somehow not as clear in a lot of American schools. ~ James Avery