“There is no one-size-fits-all in education. Period. What works in my classroom works as well as it does because I feel, with all my heart, that it is the best thing to do.”
“I get very upset when I’m giving a lecture and I’m not interrupted every few sentences by questions. My style is such that that happens very rarely. That’s my technique. I’m really trying to draw the students out, make them think for themselves. The more they challenge me, the more successful I feel as a teacher. It has to be very active. Plato used the metaphor that in teaching...there needs to be a fire in the teacher, and the sheer heat will help the fire grow in the student. It’s something that’s kindled because of the proximity to the heat.”
“Bright and well-behaved students can be taught anywhere and by anyone, but real success is when a teacher is able to engage the naughtiest and the least interested student unconditionally in the classroom.”
“When spontaneity and individuality and really good original stuff occurred in a classroom it was in spite of the instruction, not because of it. This seemed to make sense. He was ready to resign. Teaching dull conformity to hateful students wasn’t what he wanted to do.”
“If the ‘heathen’ — that is, the German and the French teachers — were regarded with little respect, the teacher of writing, Ebert, who was a German Jew, was a real martyr. To be insolent with him was a sort of chic amongst the pages. His poverty alone must have been the reason why he kept to his lesson in our corps. The old hands, who had stayed for two or three years in the fifth form without moving higher up, treated him very badly; but by some means or other he had made an agreement with them: ‘One frolic during each lesson, but no more’ — an agreement which, I am afraid, was not always honestly kept on our side. One day, one of the residents of the remote peninsula soaked the blackboard sponge with ink and chalk and flung it at the calligraphy martyr. ‘Get it, Ebert!’ he shouted, with a stupid smile. The sponge touched Ebert’s shoulder, the grimy ink spirted into his face and down on to his white shirt. We were sure that this time Ebert would leave the room and report the fact to the inspector. But he only exclaimed, as he took out his cotton handkerchief and wiped his face, ‘Gentlemen, one frolic — no more to-day! The shirt is spoiled,’ he added in a subdued voice, and continued to correct someone’s book. We looked stupefied and ashamed. Why, instead of reporting, he had thought at once of the agreement! The feelings of the whole class turned in his favour. ‘What you have done is stupid,’ we reproached our comrade. ‘He is a poor man, and you have spoiled his shirt! Shame!’ somebody cried. The culprit went at once to make excuses. ‘One must learn, sir,’ was all that Ebert said in reply, with sadness in his voice. All became silent after that, and at the next lesson, as if we had settled it beforehand, most of us wrote in our best possible handwriting, and took our books to Ebert, asking him to correct them. He was radiant, he felt happy that day. This fact deeply impressed me, and was never wiped out from my memory. To this day I feel grateful to that remarkable man for his lesson.”
“this book is part of what could be called a new wave in statistics teaching, in which formal probability theory as a basis for statistical inference does not come in till much later”
“Teaching and learning begins with your heart and brain. Those two things sustain it too.”
“I have an historical, a cultural, and a moral obligation to give back something to my country. So I became a teacher.”
“That s the worst thing about teaching, that our actions either have no force at all or have force beyond all intention, and not only our actions but our failures to act, gestures and words held back or unspoken, all we might have done and failed to do; and, more than this, that the consequences echo across years and silence, we can never really know what we ve done.”
“All this fretting about the spirits. I m trying to teach you about the mind. An infinite world that s been neglected by far too many explorers.”
“As you teach more, you will learn more. This is the Lord s way of helping you to comprehend His gospel.”
“Anyone would think we were some kind of free education service, grumbled Joyce, having disposed of the child and returned to her central eyrie. That s just what we are, said Helen. Joyce shot her a look in which surprise and indignation were nicely fused.”
“Assessment is about teachers and not about students.”
“Teaching requires that you work at being a person and work at understanding people and the world, and work at feelings and connecting and respect in ways and to a magnitude that is not often asked of adults who aren t bartenders.”
“There is nothing you will ever do that is more important than being honest about who you really are.”
“I emphasize that my job is not to challenge their personal beliefs but to teach the logic of geology (geo-logic?) - the methods and tools of the discipline that enables us not only to comprehend how the Earth works at present but also to document in detail its elaborate and awe-inspiring history.”
“The best teaching can be done only when there is a direct individual relationship between a student and a good teacher—a situation in which the student discusses the ideas, thinks about the things, and talks about the things. It’s impossible to learn very much by simply sitting in a lecture, or even by simply doing problems that are assigned.”