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Words of Wisdom on TeachersIf a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in his office at one time,
all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn't want to be there
and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or dentist, without
assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine
months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher's
job. Modern cynics and skeptics see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust
the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom
they entrust the care of their plumbing. The best teachers teach from the heart, not from the book. Teaching is the profession that teaches all the other professions. The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves
throughout their lives. Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education.
The human mind is our fundamental resource. The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of
his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind. Education is the best provision for the journey to old age. Bitter are the roots of study, but how sweet their fruit. I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well. The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher
demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one. In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work. It is invisible
and remains so, maybe for twenty years. The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes
and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick
called truth. Teachers are expected to reach unattainable goals with inadequate tools.
The miracle is that at times they accomplish this impossible task. None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps.
We got here because somebody (a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony
or a few nuns) bent down and helped us pick up our boots. The good teacher makes the poor student good and the good student superior. The task of the excellent teacher is to stimulate "apparently ordinary"
people to unusual effort. The tough problem is not in identifying winners:
it is in making winners out of ordinary people. Who dares to teach must never cease to learn. When you teach your son, you teach your son's son. Good teachers are costly, but bad teachers cost more. A good teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary. A good teacher is like a candle: it consumes itself to light the way
for others. A teacher's purpose is not to create students in his own image, but to
develop students who can create their own image. A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right
answers. We think of the effective teachers we have had over the years with a
sense of recognition, but those who have touched our humanity we remember
with a deep sense of gratitude. The job of an educator is to teach students to see the vitality in themselves. To teach is to learn twice. When asked what learning was the most necessary, he said, "Not to
unlearn what you have learned!" Education ... beyond all other devices of human origin, is a great equalizer
of conditions of men―the balance wheel of the social machinery ...
It does better than to disarm the poor of their hostility toward the rich;
it prevents being poor. The critical factor is not class size but rather the nature of the teaching
as it affects learning. The task of the excellent teacher is to stimulate "apparently ordinary"
people to unusual effort. The tough problem is not in identifying winners:
it is in making winners out of ordinary people. I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about
besides homework. Often, when I am reading a good book, I stop and thank my teacher. That
is, I used to, until she got an unlisted number. Teaching is the greatest act of optimism.
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