Teaching Quotes

...readers who think I have answers when all I have are a few pointed questions...

~ Erica Jong

The way I saw it, if my students were willing to pretend I was a teacher, the least I could do was return the favor and pretend that they were writers.

~ David Sedaris

Probably every subject is interesting if an avenue into it can be found that has humanity and that an ordinary person can follow.

~ William Zinsser

I have always felt that the true text-book for the pupil is his teacher

~ Mahatma Gandhi

The trick for business professionals, and for educators, is to present bodies of information so compelling that the audience does this (encoding) on their own, spontaneously engaging in deep and elaborate encoding.

~ John Medina

If you are trying to get information across to someone, your ability to create a compelling introduction may be the most important single factor in the later success of your mission.

~ John Medina

Public speaking professionals say that you win or lose the battle to hold your audience in the first 30 seconds of a given presentation.

~ John Medina

The more personal an example, the more richly it becomes encoded and the more readily it is remembered.

~ John Medina

The more handles one creates at the moment of learning, the more likely the information is to be assessed at a later date. The handles we can add revolve around content, timing, and environment.

~ John Medina

The author charted the importance of human examples on his spiritual journey, confessing that when harsh and domineering people based their bullying on Christ's authority, he rebelled. But when his wife represented the gracefulness of Christ's character, he was drawn back to know Christ more fully.

~ Don Wilton

Writing can be taught or learned in the vacuum. We must say to students in every area of knowledge: This is a how other people have written about this subject. Read it; study it; think about it. You can do it too.

~ William Zinsser

For Socrates, all virtues were forms of knowledge. To train someone to manage an account for Goldman Sachs is to educate him or her in a skill. To train them to debate stoic, existential, theological, and humanist ways of grappling with reality is to educate them in values and morals. A culture that does not grasp the vital interplay between morality and power, which mistakes management techniques for wisdom, which fails to understand that the measure of a civilization is its compassion, not its speed or ability to consume, condemns itself to death. Morality is the product of a civilization, but the elites know little of these traditions. They are products of a moral void. They lack clarity about themselves and their culture. They can fathom only their own personal troubles. They do not see their own bases or the causes of their own frustrations. They are blind to the gaping inadequacies in our economic, social, and political structure and do not grasp that these structures, which they have been taught to serve, must be radically modified or even abolished to stave off disaster. They have been rendered mute and ineffectual. “What we cannot speak about” Ludwig Wittgenstein warned “we must pass over in silence.

~ Chris Hedges

You teach what you know... but impart who you are.

~ Jack Frost

There was a seminar for advanced students in Zürich that I was teaching and von Neumann was in the class. I came to a certain theorem, and I said it is not proved and it may be difficult. Von Neumann didn’t say anything but after five minutes he raised his hand. When I called on him he went to the blackboard and proceeded to write down the proof. After that I was afraid of von Neumann.

~ George Pólya

Mathematics education is much more complicated than you expected, even though you expected it to be more complicated than you expected.

~ Edward Griffith Begle

The teaching of Jesus Christ has as its central theme unfoldment towards a realization of immortality.

~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

The practice of perfect virtue does not require teaching, but instructs others.

~ Ambrose Of Milan

In brief, the teaching process, as commonly observed, has nothing to do with the investigation and establishment of facts, assuming that actual facts may ever be determined. Its sole purpose is to cram the pupils, as rapidly and as painlessly as possible, with the largest conceivable outfit of current axioms, in all departments of human thought—to make the pupil a good citizen, which is to say, a citizen differing as little as possible, in positive knowledge and habits of mind, from all other citizens. In other words, it is the mission of the pedagogue, not to make his pupils think, but to make them think right, and the more nearly his own mind pulsates with the great ebbs and flows of popular delusion and emotion, the more admirably he performs his function. He may be an ass, but this is surely no demerit in a man paid to make asses of his customers.

~ H.l. Mencken

Can writing ever be taught? The best answer to that was given obliquely by the rock musician David Lee Roth. When asked if money could buy happiness he said, no, but with money you could buy the big boat and go right up to where the people were happy. With a teacher you can go right up to where the writing is done; the leap is made alone with vision, subject, passion, and instinct. So a writer comes to the page with vision in her heart and craft in her hands and a sense of what a story might be in her head. How do the three come together? My thesis is the old one: they merge in the physical writing—inside the act of writing, not from the outside. The process is the teacher.

~ Ron Carlson

Now that I’ve reached the ripe old age of retirement, I feel it my duty to teach you everything I’ve learnt about love, so listen closely. Love is like… That’s as far as I’ve gotten I’m afraid.

~ Ben Mitchell

She took a deep breath. Let me begin again. If this girl wanted to play ball in front of her department head, Christine would bring it. She closed her eyes and accessed the most expensive Philo Department vocabulary words she possessed.Well, as human beings, when we immanentize the eschaton…

~ Red Tash

That's basically the mantra of Herr Silverman's teaching - think for yourself and do what's right for you, but let others do the same.

~ Matthew Quick

The expression 'Those who can't do, teach' is a curious one, because if you look at the world , you'll see that teachers aren't particularly worse at doing things than anyone else, so perhaps the expression might be better worded as 'nobody can do anything

~ Lemony Snicket

You mean you live down here?' Matilda asked.'I do', Miss Honey replied, but she said no more.Matilda had never once stopped to think about where Miss Honey might be living. She had always regarded her purely as a teacher, a person who turned up out of nowhere and taught at school and then went away again.

~ Roald Dahl

Among the many things that made the Professor an excellent teacher was the fact that he wasn't afraid to say 'we don't know.' For the Professor, there was no shame in admitting you didn't have the answer, it was a necessary step toward the truth. It was as important to teach us about the unknown or the unknowable as it was to teach us what had already been safely proven.

~ Yōko Ogawa

I realized that every lesson, conference, response, and assignment I taught must lead students away from me and toward their autonomy as literate people.

~ Donalyn Miller

Much as a teacher may wince at the thought, he is also an entertainer—for unless he can hold his audience, he cannot really instruct or edify them.

~ Sydney J. Harris

To teach, learn. To learn, teach.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

The school takes its coloring from yourown attitude

~ Thomas E. Sanders

The enemy of learning is knowing.

~ Steve Ahn

The petty worries of theschool room must not be carried to your home or boarding place.

~ Thomas E. Sanders

Helping teacher leaders come to understand their gifts is the first step in developing a specialty. Some leaders are great coaches and should focus on instructional leadership in a district or network where that is valued and supported. Great conceptual thinkers are good in startup mode but the daily grind of leading a school doesn't suit them. Other leaders thrive on the turnaround challenge. The dynamic blended future of education will allow more role specialization.

~ Tom Vander Ark

The more you know the more you need to learn.

~ Steve Ahn

The first thing, of course, is to find a vacancy, a place where a teacher iswanted, and the second thing is to make the school officials believe you are just the person forthe position.

~ Thomas E. Sanders

Composure, a level head, a knowledge of what you want done, and why you want it done andfaith in your own ability to have it done gives composure to the whole school. Restlessness, lackof faith in self, fear of failure, these bring about the very conditions you are striving to avoid

~ Thomas E. Sanders

Parents, don’t invest in your child's teaching; invest in your child's learning.

~ Steve Ahn

I can’t teach you how to write, and anybody who says they can is full of shit.

~ Hank Moody

One can learn anything, anything at all, I thought, if provided by a gifted and passionate teacher.

~ Pat Conroy

Good coaching is good teaching and nothing else.

~ Pat Conroy

Our world needs less gurus, and more teachers. Gurus are about helping themselves become successful. Teachers are about helping others become successful.

~ Joseph C. Kunz Jr.