TEACHING

RELATED INDEX TOPICS: Children, Parents, Chastening, Education--Good & Bad, Science, Sample, Influence, Potential.

         1. The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.

         2. I beg of you to stop apologising for being a member of the most important profession in the World.

         3. The job of a teacher is to excite in the young a boundless sense of curiosity about life, so that the growing child shall come to apprehend it with an excitement tempered by awe & wonder.

         4. To know how to suggest is the art of teaching.

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

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

         7. Teachers are great resource centers. They are constantly involved, or should be, in the learning process. Hence they are accumulating learning from two perspectives--from their own discoveries, & from the experiences of their pupils.

         8. A good teacher is one whose ears get as much exercise as his mouth.

         9. A lot of children almost never talk to the teacher. But they talk to each other, & I can listen.

         10. The teacher is often the first to discover the talented & unusual scholar. How he handles & encourages, or discourage, such a child may make all the difference in the World to that child's future--& to the World.

         11. Though a teacher cannot teach what he does not know, he can sure enough inspire students to learn what he doesn't know. A great teacher has always been measured by the number of his students who have surpassed him.

         12. A great teacher is not simply one who imparts knowledge to his students, but one who awakens their interest in it & makes them eager to pursue it for themselves. He is a spark plug, not a fuel pipe.

         13. The object of teaching is to enable those taught to get along without a teacher.

         14. It is very difficult to teach anything without kindness. Pupils should feel that the teacher wants to help them, wants them to improve, is interested in their growth, is sorry for their mistakes, is pleased by their successes, & sympathetic with their inadequacies.

         15. Successful teachers share certain traits that have contributed greatly to their success. For one thing, they prize creativity. For another thing, they know how & when to maintain discipline. They can also judge & evaluate people accurately. They have a sense of humour. And they have open minds--they are alert to new ideas & new developments in teaching.

         16. It is possible for a teacher to be quite a personage to his pupils & yet to be written off as a nonentity by parents, supervisors, or other adults. Conversely, a person who impresses adults may have little impact on the pupils.

         17. A Colorado study asked 3000 high school seniors about their best teachers & received this composite:
         He is
                  (a) genuinely concerned & interested in students as individuals,
                  (b) requires students to work,
                  (c) is impartial in dealing with students, &
                  (d) is obviously enthusiastic about teaching.

         18. A professor who had taught for many years was counselling a young teacher. "You will discover," he said, "that in nearly every class there will be a youngster eager to argue. Your first impulse will be to silence him, but I advise you to think carefully before doing so. He probably is the only one listening."