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Teaching Quotes

    “Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time.”

    Hebrew proverb, via Sunbeams (Page 54)

      “There’s a time in every kid’s life when they’re still drawing every day and playing basketball every day. Then there’s a day when they stop drawing and keep playing basketball. They keep playing basketball because their parents do, and their parents don’t draw. At some point they’re like, ‘That can’t be cool because my parents don’t do it.’ You don’t think you’re cool, but if your kid says, ‘Dad, will you play with me?’ and you say, ‘Not now, I’m drawing,’ that kid is going to start drawing because that’s cool to them.”

      Mo Willems

        “I don’t praise a small child for doing what they ought to be able to do. I praise them when they do something really difficult—like sharing a toy or showing patience. I also think it is important to say ‘thank you.’ When I’m slow in getting a snack for a child, or slow to help them and they have been patient, I thank them. But I wouldn’t praise a child who is playing or reading.”

        Charlotte Stiglitz, via The Examined Life (Page 21)

        Marianna Williamson Quote on How All Human Behavior Is Either Love Or A Call For Love

          “The way of the miracle-worker is to see all human behavior as one of two things: either love or a call for love.”

          Marianna Williamson

          Beyond the Quote (Day 405)

          I have been a Martial Arts Instructor for my entire professional life and have had the privilege of working with thousands of students of all ages and from all different backgrounds. Based on all of the human behavior that I have experienced, I see it as the same: either as acts of love or as calls for love. And usually, it’s the students who are acting out the most who are calling for love the loudest.

          Read More »Marianna Williamson Quote on How All Human Behavior Is Either Love Or A Call For Love

            “Each second we live in a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that never was before and will never be again. And what do we teach our children in school? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all of the world there is no other child exactly like you. In the millions of years that have passed there has never been another child like you… You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is like you, a marvel? You must cherish one another. You must work—we must all work—to make this world worthy of its children.”

            Pablo Casals, Joys and Sorrows

            Quote on How It’s Easier To Build Up A Child Than Repair An Adult

              “It is easier to build up a child than it is to repair an adult.”

              Unknown

              Beyond the Quote (49/365)

              Learning how to properly educate, inspire, and guide our next generation is one of the most important duties we have as adults who have come before.  It is up to us to protect our kids from the world and at the same time, prepare them for it.  It is our obligation to give them the tools they need to succeed without simultaneously doing the work for them.

              Read More »Quote on How It’s Easier To Build Up A Child Than Repair An Adult

              W. B. Yeats Quote on Looking At Education Like Lighting A Fire (Not Filling A Bucket)

                “Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire.”

                W. B. Yeats

                Beyond the Quote (26/365)

                The mind does not have confines like the walls of a bucket nor does it have a maximum limit like that of a bucket—it is unbounded and is of unlimited potential.  The mind needs to be thought of like a fire. Not only is a fire wall-less, topless, and without a maximum limit, but it has an insatiable appetite that will continue consuming for as long as you continue to feed it—like that of the mind.  This is an important distinction because when we change the way we view our minds, we change the way we treat our minds (and the minds of those we’re treating).

                Read More »W. B. Yeats Quote on Looking At Education Like Lighting A Fire (Not Filling A Bucket)

                  “When we teach a child to make good decisions, we benefit from a lifetime of good decisions.  When we teach a child to love to learn, the amount of learning will become limitless.  When we teach a child to deal with a changing world, she will never become obsolete.  When we are brave enough to teach a child to question authority, even ours, we insulate ourselves from those who would use their authority to work against each of us.  And when we give students the desire to make things, even choices, we create a world filled with makers.”

                  Seth Godin, Whatcha Gonna Do With That Duck?

                    “School is at its best when it gives students the expectation that they will not only dream big, but dream dreams that they can work on every day until they accomplish them – not because they were chosen by a black-box process but because they worked hard enough to reach them.”

                    Seth Godin, Whatcha Gonna Do With That Duck?

                      “The two pillars of a future-proof education: Teach kids how to lead; help them learn how to solve interesting problems.”

                      Seth Godin, Whatcha Gonna Do With That Duck?

                        “What we can’t do is digitize passion.  We can’t force the student to want to poke around and discover new insights online.  We can’t merely say, ‘here,’ and presume the students will do the hard (and scary) work of getting over the hump and conquering their fears.  Without school to establish the foundation and push and pull our students, the biggest digital library in the world is useless.”

                        Seth Godin, Whatcha Gonna Do With That Duck?

                          “If there’s information that can be written down, widespread digital access now means that just about anyone can look it up.  We don’t need a human being standing next to us to lecture us on how to find the square root of a number or sharpen an ax.  (Worth stopping for a second and reconsidering the revolutionary nature of that last sentence.)  What we do need is someone to persuade us that we want to learn those things, and someone to push us or encourage us or create a space where we want to learn to do them better.  If all the teacher is going to do is read her pre-written notes from a PowerPoint slide to a lecture hall of thirty or three hundred, perhaps she should stay home.  Not only is this a horrible disrespect to the student, it’s a complete waste of the heart and soul of the talented teacher.  Teaching is no longer about delivering facts that are unavailable in any other format.”

                          Seth Godin, Whatcha Gonna Do With That Duck?