Quotes: Teacher, Teaching.

Teacher
Sometimes a teacher teaches only once.
Teacher 116 “Sometimes the best teacher teaches only once to a small child or to a grownup past hope.” Eiseley, The Star Thrower.

The pedantic teacher is greeted with a mighty yawn.
Teacher 104 [To a pedantic teacher]: the mighty yawn that gave you birth.

He lectured well but he was not a good teacher.
Teacher lecturer 231 Jake Gruber: “Loren was not a good teacher but a wonderful lecturer.” Christianson, Fox at the Wood’s Edge: Loren Eiseley

God is the great teacher and we do not know what man may become.
Teacher man 128 In the pages of an old book it has been written that we are in the hands of a Teacher, nor does it yet appear what man shall be. Eiseley, The Star Thrower

Teachers 188 We’ve all had teachers who made a difference. Gates, The Road Ahead.

Someone who really knows the subject will not be content to teach it the rest of his life.
Teachers 44 …for a man who really knows a subject is seldom content to spend his lifetime teaching it. Mencken, Minority Report.

Most schoolmasters are ignorant and undiscerning.
Teachers 473 I must confess I have very often with much sorrow bewailed the misfortune of the children of Great Britain, when I consider the ignorance and undiscerning of the generality of school-masters. Steele, 8/30/1711. The Spectator.

Most teachers of English don’t know their subject and have no desire to master it.
Teachers of English 120 …my contempt for teachers of English: not one in ten of them has any sort of grasp of the difficult subject he professes, or shows any desire to master it. Mencken, Minority Report.

The way literature has been taught has made the comic strip a national art form.
Teachers of English 135 Their teaching of literature has made the comic strip a national art form. Mencken, Minority Report.

He was lecturing as much for his own benefit as for the benefit of the students.
Teaching 179 She [a student] also had the feeling that he [Loren] was lecturing as much for his own benefit as for that of the students. Christianson, Fox at the Wood’s Edge: Loren Eiseley

He passed among the students raising questions to stimulate critical thinking.
Teaching 206 Eiseley…moved among the dissection tables…patiently answering every question and posing others in an effort to stimulate critical thinking. Christianson, Fox at the Wood’s Edge: Loren Eiseley

He arrived promptly, began lecturing where he had left off the period before and promptly departed as the hour ended, no questions allowed.
Teaching 231 Jake Gruber: “Loren would come in just on the dot ten minutes after the hour, pick up from where he had left off the period before, talk for fifty minutes (there were never any questions) and then just as the hour ended, he would finish it off, turn around and walk out.” Christianson, Fox at the Wood’s Edge: Loren Eiseley.

More available classrooms would not solve the problems of boring curriculums and teachers.
Teaching 608 Nor would building more school rooms help much by itself if teachers and curricula remained mechanical and boring. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

They need to like you first, and then maybe you can teach them something.
Teaching 131 …maxim from…teaching Hebrew school: “First they have to like you; then, maybe they’ll let you teach them something.” Fetterman, BV. Gross, ed. Editors on Editing.

He had so much self-confidence that his students would never know if he spoke nonsense.
Teaching 36 Of Linus Pauling: Even if he were to say nonsense, his mesmerized students would never know because of his unquenchable self-confidence. Watson, The Double Helix.

Listening to a teacher who is reasoning out loud.
Teaching 160 …awed to hear Charcot as he reasoned out loud, bringing into his analyses similar cases, proposing original theories about the cause and nature of the maladies before him. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).

A lecture must be literature.
Teaching 165 Charcot’s…daring concept that a medical lecture could and must be literature. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).

If you teach people more than they are ready to learn, there will be problems.
Teaching 9 Woe to him who teaches men faster than they can learn. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Plato.

He wrote a book on how to teach, nothing of which he had ever used.
Teaching 262 After many years of experience as a teacher, he [Kant] wrote a text-book of pedagogy, of which he used to say that it contained many excellent precepts, none of which he had ever applied. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Kant.

I don’t teach; I awaken.
Teaching 275 L. Speyer quoting Robert Frost speaking to a class of students: I am not a teacher, but an awakener. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.

Great abilities render a man unfit for teaching.
Teaching 51 Boswell: Yet I am of the opinion, that the greatest abilities are not only not required for this office [teacher] but render a man less fit for it. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

By demonstrating trust, he destroys distrust.
Teaching 607 …shall destroy distrust by his trust…. Emerson, New England Reformers.

Giving me information is of little benefit; enabling me to do it myself gives me a great benefit.
Teaching 82 It is a low benefit to give me something; it is a high benefit to enable me to do somewhat of myself. Emerson, Divinity College Address.

Spirit is the only teacher.
Teaching 83 The spirit only can teach. Emerson, Divinity College Address.

Let them know that you, like them, have doubts and that you, too, have wondered. Teaching 89 ...let their doubts know that you [the preacher] have doubted, and their wonder feel that you have wondered. Emerson, Divinity College Address.

A few people in our years of routine have made us wiser, spoke what we thought, told us what knew and let us be what we are.
Teaching 89 We mark with light in the memory the few interviews we have had, in the dreary years of routine and of sin, with souls that made our souls wiser; that spoke what we thought, that told us what we knew; that gave us leave to be what we inly were. Emerson, Divinity College Address.

The only way to teach is by doing what we expect our pupils to do.
Teaching 316 The man may teach by doing, and not otherwise. Emerson, Spiritual Laws.

School masters pour into our ears what they want us to repeat.
Teaching 19 It is the custom of school masters to be eternally thundering in our ears as if they were pouring into a funnel, and our business is only to repeat what they have said to us. Montaigne, Selected Essays.

Don’t’ teach just facts; teach the concepts behind the facts.
Teaching 27 But let my tutor remember to what end his instructions are directed, and let him not so much imprint in his pupil’s memory the date of the ruin of Carthage as the characters of Hannibal and Scipio…. Montaigne, Selected Essays.

Teacher: Let us go hear Socrates and learn together.
Teaching 551 For the philosopher Antisthenes used to say to his pupils: “Let us go, you and I, to hear Socrates; there I shall be a pupil with you.” Montaigne, Selected Essays.

His character influenced strangers in a way that mere theory could not.
Teaching 16 The example of his [Schweitzer’s] life of service had touched the hearts of strangers as theory alone could never have done. Anderson, The Schweitzer Album.

He teaches by example and by understanding the needs and difficulties of others.
Teaching 110 He [Albert Schweitzer] tries to teach through example and through understanding of the needs and difficulties of others. Anderson, The Schweitzer Album.

Writing can’t be taught, but editing can.
Teaching writing 307 Donald Barthelme: Maybe writing can’t be taught, but editing can be taught…. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook