I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught. Winston Churchill, Hansard 4 November 1952
Headmasters have powers at their disposal with which prime ministers have never yet been invested. Winston Churchill, My Early Life ch2
I could well have had a Physics teacher who took the view that girls couldn’t do Physics and what’s the point of trying that kind of thing. I’m not sure where I’d have gone then, what I’d have done. But Mr Tillet was quite the opposite. Beautiful Minds: Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, BBC 2010
A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. Henry Brooks Adams, 1838 - 1918, American man of letters
There is in every village a torch – the teacher, and an extinguisher – the clergyman. Victor Hugo
The biggest mistake that any teacher makes is to assume their students are interested in anything they have to say. Lawrence Krauss
Schoolkids Roast Teacher On Spit. Rab C Nesbitt s6e2: Wild, Daily Record spoof headline, BBC 1997
A man who reviews the old so as to find out the new is qualified to teach others. Confucius, 551-479 B.C.
Even while they teach, men learn. Seneca the Younger, Epistulae Morales
Schools and schoolmasters, as we have them today, are not popular as places of education and teachers, but rather prisons and turnkeys in which children are kept to prevent them disturbing and chaperoning their parent. George Bernard Shaw
He who can, does; he who cannot, teaches. George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman
cf.
Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach. Aristotle
Teaching is the highest form of understanding. Aristotle
A teacher should have maximal authority and minimal power. Thomas Szasz
Men must be taught as if you taught them no,
And things unknown proposed as things forgot. Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, 1711
The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,
With loads of learned lumber in his head. ibid.
For every person who want to teach there are approximately thirty who don’t want to learn – very much. W C Sellar & R J Yeatman, And Now All This, 1932
Let’s teach ourselves that honourable stop
Not to outsport discretion. William Shakespeare, Othello II iii 2-3, Othello
We but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return,
To plague the inventor. William Shakespeare, Macbeth I vii 8
Are you a Christian, miss? But are you a Christian though? Right, but are you a Christian? Is the Lord your Shepherd, miss? But is he your shepherd though? Have you got Jesus in your heart, miss? Is he in your heart though? Why do wear clothes like that then? Do you like Cliff Richard, miss? Are you the vicar of Dibley, miss? But are you the vicar of Dibley though? Are we your flock? Are we your flock though? Is it that we are your flock? Have you got a friend in Jesus, miss? Does he want you for a sunbeam? Does he want you for a sunbeam though? Am I bovvered? Am I bovvered though? The Catherine Tate Show s2e1, BBC 2005
Dialectices: 1) Opposites; 2) Turning Points. Half Nelson 2006 starring Ryan Gosling & Shareeka Epps & Anthony Mackie & Denis O'Hare & Monique Gabriella Curnen et al, director Ryan Fleck, on blackboard
So what the fuck do we do? ibid. teacher
[Kids] don’t remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are. Jim Henson, It’s Not Easy Being Green
‘It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent whatsoever,’ he said. ‘Have you thought of going into teaching?’ Terry Pratchett, Discworld
Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else ... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it. Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself. Galileo Galilei
No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.
The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.
If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind. Kahlil Gilbran, The Prophet
The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without a teacher. Elbert Hubbard
I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn. Albert Einstein
It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. Albert Einstein
The biggest challenge facing the great teachers and communicators of history is not to teach history itself, nor even the lessons of history, but why history matters. How to ignite the first spark of the will o’ the wisp, the Jack o’ lantern, the ignis fatuus [foolish fire] beloved of poets, which lights up one source of history and then another, zigzagging across the marsh, connecting and linking and writing bright words across the dark face of the present. There’s no phrase I can come up that will encapsulate in a winning sound-bite why history matters. We know that history matters, we know that it is thrilling, absorbing, fascinating, delightful and infuriating, that it is life. Yet I can’t help wondering if it’s a bit like being a Wagnerite; you just have to get used to the fact that some people are never going to listen. Stephen Fry, Making History
When you want to teach children to think, you begin by treating them seriously when they are little, giving them responsibilities, talking to them candidly, providing privacy and solitude for them, and making them readers and thinkers of significant thoughts from the beginning. That’s if you want to teach them to think. Bertrand Russell
No man can be a good teacher unless he has feelings of warm affection toward his pupils and a genuine desire to impart to them what he believes to be of value. Bertrand Russell
I’m more interested in arousing enthusiasm in kids than in teaching the facts. The facts may change, but that enthusiasm for exploring the world will remain with them the rest of their lives. Seymour Simon
The main reason I became a teacher is that I like being the first one to introduce kids to words and music and people and numbers and concepts and idea that they have never heard about or thought about before. I like being the first one to tell them about Long John Silver and negative numbers and Beethoven and alliteration and ‘Oh, What a Beautiful Morning’ and similes and right angles and Ebenezer Scrooge ... Just think about what you know today. You read. You write. You work with numbers. You solve problems. We take all these things for granted. But of course you haven’t always read. You haven’t always known how to write. You weren’t born knowing how to subtract 199 from 600. Someone showed you. There was a moment when you moved from not knowing to knowing, from not understanding to understanding. That’s why I became a teacher. Phillip Done, 32 Third Graders and One Class Bunny: Life Lessons from Teaching
The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of the mind for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards. Anatole France
The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. Amos Bronson Alcott
One of the hardest things for boys to learn is that a teacher is human. One of the hardest things for a teacher to learn is not to try and tell them. Alan Bennett, The History Boys