Being a teacher can at times be a challenging profession. I know that I often found myself questioning my choice of careers. Hopefully these quotes will help you remember why you decided to become a teacher and motivate you to want to keep doing what you do!
1. John Steinbeck – “I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that they are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.”
2. Maria Montessori – “The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, “The children are now working as if I did not exist.”
3. Edward De Bono – “Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.”
4. John Dewey – “Education, in its broadest sense, is the means of this social continuity of life.”
5. Confucius – “Every truth has four corners: as a teacher I give you one corner, and it is for you to find the other three.”
6. Benjamin Bloom – “We need to be much clearer about what we do and do not know so that we don’t continually confuse the two. If I could have one wish for education, it would be the systematic ordering of our basic knowledge in such a way that what is known and true can be acted on, while what is superstition, fad, and myth can be recognized as such and used only when there is nothing else to support us in our frustration and despair.”
7. Jerome Bruner – “Thinking about thinking” has to be a principle ingredient of any empowering practice of education.”
8. Paulo Freire – “There is, in fact, no teaching without learning. One requires the other.”
9. Lev Vygotsky – “Learning is more than the acquisition of the ability to think; it is the acquisition of many specialised abilities for thinking about a variety of things.”
10. Alison King – “From sage on the stage to guide on the side.”
11. Nikos Kazantzakis – “Ideal teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross, then having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own.”
12. Benjamin Franklin – “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”
13. Margaret Riel – “Being able to help someone learn something is a talent.”
14. Hebrew Proverb – “A child is not a vessel to be filled, but a lamp to be lit.”
15. Mother Teresa – “Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.”
16. Latin Proverb – “By learning you will teach, by teaching you will learn.”
17. Howard Gardner – “The biggest mistake of past centuries in teaching has been to treat all children as if they were variants of the same individual, and thus to feel justified in teaching them the same subjects in the same ways.”
18. Rita Dunn – “If the child is not learning the way you are teaching, then you must teach in the way the child learns.”
19. Josef Albers – “Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers.”
20. Kahlil Gibran – “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.”
21. Chinese Proverb – “Give me a fish and I eat for a day. Teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime.”
And to finish off…..
Whose Child Is This?
“Whose child is this?” I asked one day
Seeing a little one out at play.
“Mine”, said the parent with a tender smile
“Mine to keep a little while.
To bathe his/her hands and comb his/her hair,
To tell him/her what he/she is to wear,
To prepare him/her that he/she may always be good,
And each day do the things he/she should”.
“Whose child is this?” I asked again,
As the door opened and someone came in.
“Mine”, said the teacher with the same tender smile.
“Mine, to keep just for a little while.
To teach him/her how to be gentle and kind,
To train and direct his/her dear little mind,
To help him/her live by every rule,
And get the best he/she can from school”.
“Whose child is this?” I asked once more,
Just as the little one entered the door.
“Ours”, said the parent and the teacher as they smiled.
And each took the hand of the little child.
“Ours to love and train together.
Ours this blessed task forever.”
Author Unknown
What about you? Do you have an inspirational quote to motivate you to keep on going?
Photo Courtesy: mrsdkrebs
My latest inspirational quote – “Dont sweat the small stuff”
Ha Ha, too true. Sometimes it’s easy to get bogged down with the small things. This is especially so for teachers. There are so many things pulling at us that at times it’s hard to stay on top of them. I think it’s about putting things into perspective, living in the present moment and making small changes to assist with the daily challenges of teaching!
be good to your mother
I’m sure my Mum would love this one 😉
Great quotes. A favourite quote of mine with regard to kids learning is this:
Everyone is a genius.
But if you judge a fish
on its ability to climb a tree,
it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.
~ Albert Einstein
I’m glad you like the quotes! Oohhh that one is a great quote. I think sometimes it’s easy to overlook the individuality of your students and what their special abilities and talents might be…..something to keep in mind.
Loved the quotes! Lots for educators to think about. Here’s a new one I recently came across and really like: “Learning is a function of reflection: Adults do not learn from experience, they learn from processing experience.” Garnston & wellman, 1997
Hey Carole,
Thanks so much for stopping by and I’m glad to hear you liked the quotes! Thanks also for sharing your quote…definitely something to think about!
Cheers
Mel
Great quotes! I like this one too:
“Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”
― Plato
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