Teacher Quotes

Last week was Teacher Appreciation Week (although we're celebrating it this week in the elementary school with breakfast, lunch, and treats for the teachers), so teachers have been in the news  as of late, or at least in the news feed. I ran across this link for the top quotes about teaching, culled together in case any of the teachers out there need a pat on the back, I guess. If you're like me, you spend a lot of time feeling under appreciated (sort of like parenting, no?) and the list is supposed to make you feel better perhaps.

But the quotes given do not make me think, Oh yes, that's why I went into teaching! Not at all. I think it's because I felt luke-warm about the list. I mean, I like the choices (they provide nine quotes), but all of them are lofty, so unlike what a student would say to you. I didn't get a warm and fuzzy feeling from most of the quotes (although I like the words of Albert Einstein), so I went searching for some quotes that spoke to me (even though none of these would ever be spoken by a real student). By the way, these quotes might not speak to you, but you can make your own list, you know?

Every child should have a caring adult in their lives. And that's not always a biological parent or family member. It may be a friend or neighbor. Often times it is a teacher.

~Joe Manchin 

The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.

~C. S. Lewis 

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.

~Thurgood Marshall 

 A mind when stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions.

~Anonymous

I am not a teacher, but an awakener.

~Robert Frost

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.

~Nelson Mandela

What is a teacher? I'll tell you: it isn't someone who teaches something, but someone who inspires the student to give of her best in order to discover what she already knows.

~Paulo Coelho, The Witch of Portobello 

In order to be a teacher you've got to be a student first.
~Gary L. Francione

I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework.

~Lily Tomlin, as "Edith Ann"