Category Archives: Quotes

As every second post on this site is a quote. You’ll find a deep and broad variety of quotes under this category, which overlap with several other tags and categories. Many of the quotes are larded with links for deeper reading on the subject of the quote, or connections between the subject of the quotes and other people, things, or ideas. See the Taxonomies page for more about this category.

Anne Sullivan on Professional Satisfaction

Posted on November 23, 2015 | Leave a comment

“My heart is singing for joy…The light of understanding has shone in my little pupil’s mind, and behold all things are changed.”

Anne Sullivan (1866-1936)

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.

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The Case for Reading Proficiency

Posted on November 16, 2015 | Leave a comment

“Reading well makes children more interesting both to themselves and to others, a process in which they will develop a sense of being separate and distinct selves.”

Harold Bloom, Short Stories and Poems for Exceptionally Intelligent Children (2001)

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.

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What Is Education?

Posted on November 9, 2015 | Leave a comment

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

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

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Plato on Differentiated Instruction

Posted on November 2, 2015 | 2 comments

“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 (427?-347 B.C.)

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.

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William Blake on Recess

Posted on October 26, 2015 | Leave a comment

“Such, such were the joys/When we all, girls and boys/In our youth time were seen/On the Echoing Green.”

William Blake, Songs of  Innocence (1789)

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.

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Mark Twain on Classroom Management

Posted on October 20, 2015 | Leave a comment

“Describing her first day back in grade school, after a long absence, a teacher said, ‘It was like trying to hold thirty-five corks under water at the same time.’”

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.

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For Those Reluctant to Participate in Class

Posted on October 12, 2015 | Leave a comment

“Mistakes are the portals of discovery.”

James Joyce Dubliners (1914)

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.

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Memo to Pearson

Posted on October 5, 2015 | Leave a comment

“It is in fact nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not entirely strangled the holy curious of inquiry.”

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.

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Corragio!

Posted on September 28, 2015 | Leave a comment

“Yet even as I wince at the terrible risk we all took, I remember thinking at the time that it was the right decision—because it it felt as though the hand of fate was ushering us forward.”

Melba Patillo Beals on the Integration of Little Rock Schools in Warriors Don’t Cry (1994)

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.

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Edmund Wilson’s Refusal Card

Posted on September 22, 2015 | Leave a comment

The great American literary critic Edmund Wilson, of whom I have long been an great admirer, was famous for his refusal card, which I’ve reprinted here. At some point, I’ll rewrite this for public school teachers. Is there anything or anyone in particular to which or whom you would like to say no?

“Edmund Wilson regrets that it is impossible for him without compensation to:

read manuscripts

contribute to books or periodicals

do editorial work

judge literary contests

deliver lectures

address meetings

make after-dinner speeches

broadcast;

Under any circumstances to:

contribute to or take part in symposiums

take part in chain-poems or other collective compositions

contribute manuscripts for sales

donate copies of his books to libraries

autograph books for strangers

supply personal information about himself

supply photographs of himself

allow his name to be used on letter-heads

receive unknown persons who have no apparent business with him.”

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