Quotes About Good Teaching

“Why were American kids consistently underestimated in math? In middle school, Kim and Tom had both decided that math was something you were either good at, or you weren't, and they weren't. Interestingly, that was not the kind of thing that most Americans said about reading. If you weren't good at reading, you could, most people assumed, get better through hard work and good teaching. But in the United States, math was, for some reason, considered more of an innate ability, like being double-jointed.”

— Amanda Ripley

“Good teaching gains its authority from having consistent and repeated support from multiple scriptural sources, and it builds a firm base for our unity and our confidence in Christ.”

— Reid A. Ashbaucher

“Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.”

— Gail Godwin

“It needs more than ever to be stressed that the best and truest educators are parents under God. The greatest school is the family. In learning, no act of teaching in any school or university compares to the routine task of mothers in teaching a babe who speaks no language the mother tongue in so short a time. No other task in education is equal to this. The moral training of the children, the discipline of good habits, is an inheritance from the parents to the children which surpasses all other. The family is the first and basic school of man.”

— Rousas John Rushdoony

“Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher.”

— Parker J. Palmer

“Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers.”

— Josef Albers

“For often we wickedly blind ourselves to the occasions of teaching and admonishing them, sometimes even of reprimanding and chiding them, either because we shrink from the labor or are ashamed to offend them, or because we fear to lose good friendships,”

— Augustine Of Hippo

“I have learned that, although I am a good teacher, I am a much better student, and I was blessed to learn valuable lessons from my students on a daily basis. They taught me the importance of teaching to a student - and not to a test.”

— Erin Gruwell

“Good coaching is good teaching and nothing else.”

— Pat Conroy

“There is a force in the world that doesn't want us to live good stories. It doesn't want us to face our issues, to face our fear and bring something beautiful into the world ... I believe God wants us to create beautiful stories, and whatever it is that isn't God wants us to create meaningless stories, teaching the world around us that life just isn't worth living.”

— Donald Miller

“I've always thought that good teaching is about illumination. Sure, we teach things kids might not know, but a lot of the time, we're just shedding light on the stuff they already know.”

— R.J. Palacio

“Great teaching - just plain old knock 'em dead, get it right, make 'em laugh, make 'em wonder instruction - is always going to be rare. Good teachers abound. Great ones are special.”

— Robert Krulwich

“The very decided manner with which he spoke, and strove to impress his wife with the evil consequences of giving me instruction, served to convince me that he was deeply sensible of the truths he was uttering. It gave me the best assurance that I might rely with the utmost confidence on the results which, he said, would flow from teaching me to read. What he most dreaded, that I most desired. What he most loved, that I most hated. That which to him was a great evil, to be carefully shunned, was to me a great good, to be diligently sought; and the argument which he so warmly urged, against my learning to read, only served to inspire me with a desire and a determination to learn. In learning to read, I owe almost as much to the bitter opposition of my master, as to the kindly aid of my mistress. I acknowledge the benefit of both.”

— Frederick Douglass

“Why does Jesus regard the Father and himself as the best model for all humans? Because neither the Father nor the Son desires greedily, egotistically. God "makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and he sends his rain on the just and on the unjust." God gives to us without counting, without marking the least difference between us. He lets the weeds grow with the wheat until the time of harvest. If we imitate the detached generosity of God, then the trap of mimetic rivalries will never close over us. This is why Jesus says also, "Ask, and it will be given to you ... " When Jesus declares that he does not abolish the Law but fulfills it, he articulates a logical consequence of his teaching. The goal of the Law is peace among humankind. Jesus never scorns the Law, even when it takes the form of prohibitions. Unlike modern thinkers, he knows quite well that to avoid conflicts, it is necessary to begin with prohibitions.”

— René Girard

“I always considered myself being an organizer. I'm very good at teaching singers, I'm very good at staging a show, to entertain people. But I never included myself. I never applied this to me as an artist.”

— Ike Turner

“I don't know how good I'll be at teaching you. Seems I can't even teach you to call me Father.'
She smiled shyly. 'Chase and Father mean the same thing to me.”

— Terry Goodkind

“Week before last I went to Wesleyan and read "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." After it I went to one of the classes where I was asked questions. There were a couple of young teachers there and one of them, an earnest type, started asking the questions. "Miss O'Connor," he said, "why was the Misfit's hat black?" I said most countrymen in Georgia wore black hats. He looked pretty disappointed. Then he said, "Miss O'Connor, the Misfit represents Christ, does he not?" "He does not," I said. He looked crushed. "Well, Miss O'Connor," he said, "what is the significance of the Misfit's hat?" I said it was to cover his head; and after that he left me alone. Anyway, that's what's happening to the teaching of literature.”

— Flannery O'Connor

“That profit which good things bestowed on us by teaching to seek pleasure elsewhere than in the barren satisfaction of worldly wealth.”

— Marcel Proust

“Greta Wickham. He used to say if only Nora and Greta were here now, we wouldn't be in this mess, even when there was no mess at all." "Oh, he talked very warmly about you," Peggy interjected, "and William Junior and Thomas had nothing but good words to say about Maurice Webster when he was teaching them. I remember one day Thomas had a temperature and we all wanted him to stay in bed and he wouldn't, oh no he wouldn't, because he had a double commerce class with Mr. Webster that he could not miss. You know they wanted Thomas to stay in Dublin when he qualified. Oh, he got offers with very good prospects! We told him he should consider”

— Colm Tóibín

“I've had the good fortune of teaching and preaching across much of the globe, while also struggling to make sense of my experience in my own tiny world.”

— Richard Rohr

“Good teaching is creating really interesting generalizations out of war stories.”

— Derek Bok

“She turned back to Sophie. "First things first: are your parents alive?" "Yes," she said, blinking in surprise, not sure where this was going. "Good. And you talk to your mother?" "Yes, almost every day." Dora glanced sideways at Scatty. "You hear that? Almost every day." She took one of Sophie's hands in hers and patted the back of it. "Maybe you should be teaching Scathach a thing or two. And have you a grandmother?" "My Nana, yes, my father's mother. I usually call her on Fridays," she added, realizing with a guilty start that today was Friday and that Nana Newman would be expecting a call. "Every Friday," the Witch of Endor said significantly, and looked at”

— Michael Scott

“[The] insistence on the absolutely indiscriminate nature of compassion within the Kingdom is the dominant perspective of almost all of Jesus' teaching.
What is indiscriminate compassion? 'Take a look at a rose. Is is possible for the rose to say, "I'll offer my fragrance to good people and withhold it from bad people"? Or can you imagine a lamp that withholds its rays from a wicked person who seeks to walk in its light? It could do that only be ceasing to be a lamp. And observe how helplessly and indiscriminately a tree gives its shade to everyone, good and bad, young and old, high and low; to animals and humans and every living creature
even to the one who seeks to cut it down. This is the first quality of compassion
its indiscriminate character.' (Anthony DeMello, The Way to Love) ...
What makes the Kingdom come is heartfelt compassion: a way of tenderness that knows no frontiers, no labels, no compartmentalizing, and no sectarian divisions.”

— Brennan Manning

“If a Coach is determined to stay in the coaching profession, he will develop from year to year. This much is true, no coach has a monopoly on the knowledge of basketball. There are no secrets in the game. The only secrets, if there are any, are good teaching of sound fundamentals, intelligent handling of men, a sound system of play, and the ability to instill in the boys a desire to win.”

— Adolph Rupp

“Well, I've worried some about, you know, why write books ... why are we teaching people to write books when presidents and senators do not read them, and generals do not read them. And it's been the university experience that taught me that there is a very good reason, that you catch people before they become generals and presidents and so forth and you poison their minds with ... humanity, and however you want to poison their minds, it's presumably to encourage them to make a better world.”

— Kurt Vonnegut

“When spontaneity and individuality and really good original stuff occurred in a classroom it was in spite of the instruction, not because of it. This seemed to make sense. He was ready to resign. Teaching dull conformity to hateful students wasn't what he wanted to do.”

— Robert M. Pirsig

“Good teaching is an act of hospitality toward the young, and hospitality is always an act that benefits the host even more than the guest. The concept of hospitality arose in ancient times when this reciprocity was easier to see: in nomadic cultures, the food and shelter one gave to a stranger yesterday is the food and shelter one hopes to receive from a stranger tomorrow. By offering hospitality, one participates in the endless reweaving of a social fabric on which all can depend-thus the gift of sustenance for the guest becomes a gift of hope for the host. It is that way in teaching as well: the teacher's hospitality to the student results in a world more hospitable to the teacher.”

— Parker J. Palmer

“For sound advice is a beacon, good teaching is a light, moral discipline is a life path.”

— Eugene H. Peterson

“Sancho, when a man knows not how to read, or is left-handed, it argues one of two things; either that he was the son of exceedingly mean and lowly parents, or that he himself was so incorrigible and ill-conditioned that neither good company nor good teaching could make any impression on him.”

— Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

“The art of good teaching begins when we can answer the questions our students are really trying to ask us, if only they knew how to do so.”

— Deborah Meier

“We live in a world where people are so busy trying to find someone that's "good enough" for them, that they have failed to stop and ask themselves if they are in fact good enough for other people! This is the result of a feeling of false entitlement that has been instilled in the minds of people today. "Everyone" deserves "the best" from the "Universe" however, nobody is teaching anybody to stop and try to become the best for their own selves and for other people. When everybody thinks they are the best, everybody falls short of the best that they can actually be.”

— C. JoyBell C.

“Good teaching is forever being on the cutting edge of a child's competence.”

— Jerome Bruner

“I am firm in my belief that a teacher lives on and on through his students. Good teaching is forever and the and the teacher is immortal.”

— Jesse Stuart

“Do not try to satisfy your vanity by teaching a great many things. Awaken people's curiosity. It is enough to open minds; do not overload them. Put there just a spark. If there is some good inflammable stuff, it will catch fire.”

— Anatole France

“I'll tell you the secret to good teaching: make possible an experience without predetermining what that experience will be.”

— Maxine

“Today, in the age of standardized testing, thinking and acting, reason and judgment have been thrown out the window just as teachers are increasingly being deskilled and forced to act as semi-robotic technicians good for little more than teaching for the test ...”

— Henry Giroux

“While a significant part of learning certain comes from teaching - but good teaching and by good teachers - a major measure comes from exploration, from reinventing the wheel and finding out for oneself.”

— Nicholas Negroponte

“The Bible is like a wide and beautiful landscape seen afar off, dim and confused; but a good telescope will bring it near, and spread out all its rocks and trees and flowers and v__ulant fields and winding rivers at one's very feet. That telescope is the Spirit's teaching.”

— Thomas Chalmers

“It can be said unequivocally that good teaching is far more complex, difficult, and demanding than mediocre research, which may explain why professors try so hard to avoid it.”

— Page Smith

“Teaching, like any truly human activity, emerges from one's inwardness, for better or worse. As I teach I project the condition of my soul onto my students, my subject, and our way of being together. The entanglements I experience in the classroom are often no more or less than the convolutions of my inner life. Viewed from this angle, teaching holds a mirror to the soul. If I am willing to look in that mirror and not run from what I see, I have a chance to gain self-knowledge-and knowing myself is as crucial to good teaching as knowing my students and my subject.”

— Parker J. Palmer

“Every good teaching may still end up producing evil bandits who have no principles whatsoever, an outcome even more likely when the teacher is also a bandit.”

— Pramoedya Ananta Toer

“I don't know. I imagine good teaching as a circle of earnest people sitting down to ask each other meaningful questions. I don't see it as a handing down of answers ...”

— Alice Walker

“But as Nature is the best guide, teaching must be the development of natural inclinations, for which purpose the teacher must watch his pupil and listen to him, not continually bawl words into his ears as if pouring water into a funnel. Good teaching will come from a mind well made rather than well filled.”

— Michel De Montaigne

“Good teaching must be slow enough so that it is not confusing, and fast enough so that it is not boring.”

— Sydney J. Harris

“It seems to us unwise to have insisted on teaching geometry to the younger Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, in order to make him a good king, but from Plato's point of view it was essential. He was sufficiently Pythagorean to think that without mathematics no true wisdom is possible.”

— Bertrand Russell

“Good teaching comes from good people.”

— Parker J. Palmer

“To live a single day and hear a good teaching is better than to live a hundred years without knowing such teaching.”

— Gautama Buddha

“The Jesuits were good educators, exceptional teachers. In an era and in a society where freedom of speech was not held in high regard, of course, that the discourse be focused on what they were teaching, but we were able to go beyond this framework without incurring too great a risk.”

— Pierre Trudeau

“When introduced at the wrong time or place, good logic may be the worst enemy of good teaching.”

— George Polya

“The secret of good teaching is to regard the child's intelligence as a fertile field in which seeds may be sown, to grow under the heat of flaming imagination.”

— Maria Montessori