“I realized that every lesson, conference, response, and assignment I taught must lead students away from me and toward their autonomy as literate people.”
“Mengajar adalah semacam pertunjukan yang harus menarik.”
“Now, it is of course well known that Christ continually uses the expression imitators. He never says that he asks for admirers, adoring admirers, adherents; and when he uses the expression follower he always explains it in such a way that one perceives that imitators is meant by it, that is not adherents of a teaching but imitators of a life....”
“Shabelsky: O mind of genius, you think up things for everyone and teach everyone, but why not for once teach me... Teach me, great brain, show me the way out...”
“Our world needs less gurus, and more teachers. Gurus are about helping themselves become successful. Teachers are about helping others become successful.”
“This teaching job did not pay a lot of money, because, let s face it, nobody gives a flying fuck about education, but it was a temporary position.”
“There s nothing sillier in the world than a teacher telling you don t do it after you already did it.”
“The teacher is of course an artist, but being an artist does not mean that he or she can make the profile, can shape the students. What the educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves.”
“Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fancies. To teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them. In fact, men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth — often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.”
“The most important attitude that can be formed is that of desire to go on learning.”
“Roses and thorns are parts of the same plant. Somehow though, some people are concerned mainly about the roses. The rose is not on the plant for more than a week, but the thorns are there forever. Roses are teaching that the beauty of life will bloom, once you have taught yourself the lessons given by living with the thorns.”
“Teach them the quiet words of kindness, to live beyond themselves. Urge them toward excellence, drive them toward gentleness, pull them deep into yourself, pull them upward toward manhood, but softly like an angel arranging clouds. Let your spirit move through them softly.”
“The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence.”
“Those who don t know must learn from those who do.”
“In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something else.”
“part of the art of teaching is the ability to rearrange the world for students - to force them to see things in a new way. i ve known too many stupid intellectuals to believe that education and wisdom come as a package deal along with facts, it s your perspective that counts - your ability to see differently, not just to see a lot.”
“You will search the world over and not find a nonsuperstitious community. As long as there is ignorance, there will be adherence to superstition. Dispelling ignorance is the only solution. That is why I teach.”