“There was a time we laughed at the old guys up on the hill. The ones who graduated a couple of years before us, and who would hang around the school and the ballpark still, and would sit on the hoods of their cars and tell us how when they were seniors they did it better, faster, and further. We laughed, because we were still doing it, and all they could do was talk. If our goals were not met, there was next year, but it never occurred to us that one day there would not be a next year, and that the guys sitting on the hoods of their cars at the top of the hill, wishing they could have one more year, willing to settle for one last game, could one day be us.”
“...anyone still attempting to argue that Ebonics is a problem for black students or that it is somehow connected to a lack of intelligence or lack of desire to achieve is about as useful as a Betamax video cassette player, and it s time for those folks to be retired, be they teachers, administrators, or community leaders, so the rest of us can try to do some real work in the service of equal access for black students and all students. (15)”
“Partnership is giving, taking, learning, teaching, offering the greatest possible benefit while doing the least possible harm.”
“Kids are little people. Little people who are coming to you because you are a safe-space for them. Don’t ruin the relationship of trust by lying to them.”
“Yes, in case you missed the innuendo there, an F, just like an A, is an earned grade.”
“The classroom is a place of high drama. You ll never know what you ve done to, or for, the hundreds coming and going. You see them leaving the classroom: dreamy, flat, sneering, admiring, smiling, puzzled. After a few years you develop antennae. You can tell when you ve reached them or alienated them. It s chemistry. It s psychology. It s animal instinct. You are with the kids and, as long as you want to be a teacher, there s no escape. Don t expect help from the people who ve escaped the classroom, the higher-ups. They re busy going to lunch and thinking higher thoughts. It s you and the kids. So, there s the bell. See you later. Find what you love and do it.”
“Reveal your heart and soul and teach this world as much as you can.”
“Bullshit. You were testing me.” “It’s my job to test you.” “I thought it was your job to teach me. That’s not the same thing.”
“Uninterested kids Listening to uninterested teachers Teaching uninteresting topics While having access to the most interesting device of all time A PHONE! (This is a generalization, I got mad love for teachers)”
“Neutrality is a luxury of the comfortable; in these uncomfortable times, our students and our academic communities need more from us.”
“It’s a complete waste of time trying to teach the dead.”
“Actually it is easy to exaggerate this, to make him into a caricature of the comic professor muttering inaudibly to himself. In reality it was not much like that. He did speak fast and not very clearly, but once the listener was used to the mannerism there was little difficulty in understanding most of what he said. Or rather, the difficulty was not physical but intellectual. He moved on so fast from idea to idea and spoke so allusively, assuming an equal knowledge in his listener, that all but those with a comparable range of learning wee left behind. Not that to speak too cleverly is necessarily more defensible than to speak too fast, and Tolkien can be justly accused of over estimating the intellectual powers of his listeners. Alternatively one can say that he did not bother to make himself clear because he was really speaking to himself, airing his own ideas without any attempt at real conversation.”
“As his father saw it, he did not want to learn what was taught. But in fact, he could not learn it. He could not, because there were demands in his soul that were more exacting for him than those imposed by his father and the pedagogue. These demands were conflicting, and he fought openly with his educators.”
“No one can teach riding so well as a horse”
“Paul watched him amble into his class-room at the end of the passage, where a burst of applause greeted his arrival. Dumb with terror, he went into his own class-room. Ten boys sat before him, their hands folded, their eyes bright with expectation. ‘Good morning, sir,’ said the one nearest him. ‘Good morning,’ said Paul. ‘Good morning, sir,’ said the next. ‘Good morning,’ said Paul. ‘Good morning, sir,’ said the next. ‘Oh, shut up,’ said Paul. At this the boy took out a handkerchief and began to cry quietly.”
“Great teaching is the ability to distinguish between what can and needs to be explained and what cannot be explained. The working of a computer needs to be explained as it is made by the human mind. But a butterfly need not always be explained. A butterfly has to be seen with gleaming eyes of wonder as it is a natural expression of life and not of the mind. Great teaching is more like a craft than a technique. To evoke the curiosity in the learner, to care for the learner and to take the learner on a journey of discovery are some of the most critical elements of this craft.”
“When I teach, I shape a team. When I teach, I grow trust. When I teach, I allow transparency. When I teach, I rear courage. When I teach, I enable opportunities. When I teach, I learn about hopes and fears of my students. When I teach, I also teach beyond books. I teach to sculpt a better world.”