Do not train children to learning by force and 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

National Teacher Appreciation Day was this week on May 7 2013. This is a wonderful idea. Teachers deserve much more appreciation than they currently receive.

Teaching and education are the tool and the outcome in a student’s life. Much like the artist uses a brush to paint. The teacher is the artist, teaching is the brush and education is the finished canvas.

Teaching has been my journey for the last 27 years. I am not a school teacher any more but I still consider myself an educator. I teach, I coach, I present, I motivate, I do public speaking, I write, I do community work and in all those things I educate kids and grownups to find the gift they have inside let it shine.

Unlike some of my colleagues, I have been fortunate from the very beginning of my educating career. I got to work with inspiring people and started my career by doing research on effective education techniques. Later on, I wrote programs and implemented them to check their effectiveness. I was lucky enough to work all around the world and received a lot of appreciation for my work. It was a cycle, the more I worked, the more I was appreciated and the more I wanted to work and write and experiment. While most of my class mates left the special education field because of burnout, being appreciated helped encouraged me to persevere.

During my training, I was often asked about my “education philosophy”. With over 1000 articles in this blog, I have written about my philosophy and what happened in my life that made me think this way. One tool I found to be useful throughout the years is to collect quotes and write down my own about my beliefs regarding education and teaching.

Here are just some of them; I hope you will find them as much of an inspiration as I did.

The aim of education should be to teach us more how to think, than what to think- more to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with thoughts of other men

Bill Beattie

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”.

Dan Rather

If 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.

Donald D. Quinn

Teaching is the business of manipulating students to think they are smart, courageous, talented, friendly, able and happy.

Ronit Baras

A teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on cold iron

Horace Mann

A good teacher is like a candle- it consumes itself to light the way for others

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, translated from Turkish

The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. He inspires self-distrust. He guides their eyes from himself to the spirit that quickens him. He will have no disciple

Amos Bronson Alcott

Creativity, flexibility, tolerance and love are natural states of mind and our purpose is to nurture them to full blossom

Ronit Baras

The difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson

Tom Bodett

Academic achievement is a side effect of strong emotional intelligence

Ronit Baras

An educational system isn’t worth a great deal if it teaches young people how to make a living but doesn’t teach them how to make a life

Author Unknown

He who opens a school door, closes a prison

Victor Hugo

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

Nelson Mandela

If kids do not understand something, it is always because the grownup has not found a good way to explain it yet

Ronit Baras

Education would be much more effective if its purpose was to ensure that by the time they leave school, every boy and girl should know how much they do not know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it

William Haley

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them

James Baldwin

In education, it is very important to plant the seeds of what we want to harvest

Ronit Baras

A good teacher is a master of simplification and an enemy of simplism

Louis A. Berman

The best teachers teach from the heart, not from the book

Author Unknown

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires

William Arthur Ward

A child educated only at school is an uneducated child

George Santayana

Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants

John W. Gardner

Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve

Roger Lewin

Grades are for teachers, not for kids – test results are not only an indication of how well a child has learned a subject but also how well the teacher has taught it

Ronit Baras

They say that we are better educated than our parents’ generation. What they mean is that we go to school longer. It is not the same thing

Richard Yates

Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself

John Dewey

You can get all A’s and still flunk life

Walker Percy

It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows

Epictetus

Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand

Chinese proverb

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail

Abraham Maslow

You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives

Clay P. Bedford

Teaching is not about what we give our students but about what they choose to take. We spend too much time giving our students and too little time teaching them to take

Ronit Baras

Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism

David M. Burns

A teacher’s purpose is not to create students in his own image, but to develop students who can create their own image

Author Unknown

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops

Henry B Adams

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great

Mark Twain

If someone is going down the wrong road, he doesn’t need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around

Jim Rohn

People learn something every day, and a lot of times it’s that what they learned the day before was wrong

Bill Vaughan

Not everything in life is beautiful and easy, but everything holds a lesson – a message of encouragement or a warning. When circumstances speak, all you have to do is listen

Ronit Baras

One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child

Carl Jung

What a teacher writes on the blackboard of life can never be erased

Author Unknown

Education cost money, but then so does ignorance

Claus Moser

What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches

Karl Menninger

What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the human soul

Joseph Addison

The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you

B.B. King

Teachers touch the future

Author Unknown

Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school

Albert Einstein

The education of the will is the object of our existence

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

K. Patricia Cross

Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune

Jim Rohn quotes

Much like goldfish grow in perfect proportion to the size of their bowl, children grow in perfect proportion to the size of the emotional freedom they are given to explore, learn, feel and express

Ronit Baras

Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition

Jacques Barzun

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

Lily Tomlin as “Edith Ann”

Teaching creates all other professions

Author Unknown

Teachers who inspire know that teaching is like cultivating a garden, and those who would have nothing to do with thorns must never attempt to gather flowers

Author Unknown

Who dares to teach must never cease to learn

John Cotton Dana

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

John F. Kenned

If the system was honest, kids would never consider cheating. They would think of a test as more of an opportunity to show off their skills, abilities and talents.

If the system was open, kids would not need to memorize insignificant information that they will never need. They can come to school happily, to grow, evolve and learn.

If the system focused on kids’ wellbeing, they would not be afraid of not matching their parents’ and teachers’ expectations. They would feel proud, curious, adequate and motivated.

If the system was creative, kids would not aim to simply “pass” the test. They would constantly test and evaluate themselves

Ronit Baras

The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself

Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Teaching should be full of ideas instead of stuffed with facts

Author Unknown

Teachers who inspire realize there will always be rocks in the road ahead of us. They will be stumbling blocks or stepping stones; it all depends on how we use them

Author Unknown

A teacher’s job is to take a bunch of live wires and see that they are well-grounded

D. Martin

Rules are meant to give kids a sense of certainty, safety and security, rather than a sense of control to their socializing agents

Ronit Baras

Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic

Stephen R. Covey

When you teach your son, you teach your son’s son

The Talmud

Tests are meant to measure how well the teacher taught the subject and not how well kids can memories things

Ronit Baras

A child is not a vessel to be filled, but a lamp to be lit

Hebrew Proverb

To teach is to touch lives forever

Author Unknown

A truly special teacher is very wise, and sees tomorrow in every child’s eyes

Author Unknown

If you wonder what is wrong with kids today, I think it is their education system! They are part of an education system that does not teach them how to do things but still checks if they do them well

Ronit Baras

To teach is to learn twice

Joseph Joubert

Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself

Chinese Proverb

In teaching others we teach ourselves

Proverb

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge

Albert Einstein

Leading a child to learning’s treasures, gives a teacher untold pleasures

Unknown

I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think

Socrates

I am not a teacher, but an awakener

Robert Frost

The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards

Anatole France

Testing is an art. Unfortunately most education systems cannot even call themselves armatures

Ronit Baras

If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people

Confucius

The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery

Mark Van Doren

I am a teacher. A teacher is someone who leads. There is no magic here. I do not walk on water. I do not part the sea. I just love children

Marva Collins

I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there 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

John Steinbeck

History is philosophy teaching by example

Thucydides

The fact is, no matter how good the teacher, how small the class, how focused on quality education the school may be, none of this matters if we ignore the individual needs of our students

Roy Barnes

In other words, if a teacher only teaches in one way, then they conclude that the kids who can’t learn well that way don’t have the ability, when, in fact, it may be that the way the teacher’s teaching is not a particularly good match to the way those kids learn

Robert Sternberg

There is no teacher, living or past, who can give us the actual understanding of truth. A teacher can only put our feet upon the path and point the way. That is all. It is wholly dependent on the individual to make his way to truth

Paul Twitchell

I believe that the testing of the student’s achievements in order to see if he meets some criterion held by the teacher is directly contrary to the implications of therapy for significant learning

Carl Rogers

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life

Chinese Proverb

Never do anything for a student that he is capable of doing for himself. If you do you, you’ll make him an educational cripple…a pedagogical paraplegic

Howard Hendricks

Learning is finding out what we already know. Doing is demonstrating that you know it. Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you. You are all learners, doers and teachers

Richard Bach

Native ability without education is like a tree without fruit

Arisippus

Most great learning happens in groups. Collaboration is the stuff of growth

Sir Ken Robinson

Spoon feeding, in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon

E.M. Forster

If the child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn

Igancio Estrada

Students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care

Anonymous

Education is not to reform students or amuse them or to make them expert technicians. It is to unsettle their minds, widen their horizons, inflame their intellects, teach them to think straight, if possible

Robert M. Hutchins

If kids come to us from strong, healthy functioning families, it makes our job easier. If they do not come to us from strong, healthy, functioning families, it makes our job more important

Barbara Colorose

The principle goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done – men who are creative, inventive and discoverers

Jean Piaget

Children are like wet cement; whatever falls on them makes an impression

Haim Ginott

The test of a good teacher is not how many questions he can ask his pupils that they will answer readily, but how many questions he inspires them to ask him which he finds it hard to answer

Alice Wellington Rollins

Teaching kids to count is fine, but teaching them what counts is best

Bob Talbert

If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow

John Dewey

There are plenty more of them that inspired me to be the educator I am today. Many of them have left a mark on my heart. Others I print and post around my house until they became part of my belief system. I hope these quotes inspire you.

Happy teachers’ day,
Ronit