50 Timeless quotes for educators

“Like your body, your mind also gets tired so refresh it by wise sayings.”

                                ~Hazrat Ali

I think many of us get inspiration from sharp quotes that strike like a bolt of thunder and get us seeing things anew, with fresh insight.

I’m an avid collector of quotes, especially those related to education and teaching.  A well said thought, aphorism or quote is like a gum drop I chew upon and whose sweetness is sustaining, invigorating. For me the teacher, quotes help me hone in on my own beliefs and they clear out a lot of the dust and distraction.

So here are my own favorite all time classic quotes about learning, teaching and education. I hope they also inspire and rejuvenate!

Find my previous list of my own quotes HERE.   Get all the 50 lists HERE.

1.  Students must discover for themselves. Knowledge must be earned, not banked.

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2.  Teachers must consider who they are as much as how they perform, when teaching.

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3. Give students ownership of their learning – it will last a lifetime.

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4. How important is our job! Almost godly, what being, what life we set in motion ….

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5.  The student must participate and ultimately be responsible for their own learning. Teachers just provide the right conditions for learning to occur.

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6. When you prepare a good lesson, the learning just happens. Nurture student autonomy and learning in and for and of themselves.  

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7.  Know the difference. Credentials are just part of the whole. Learning is not just that which occurs in school.

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8.  Knowledge is action is power, “praxis” is paramount and students must enact their learning.

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9.  Teachers are no longer all knowing providers of content. Our role has changed.

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10. We learn best by doing, by active participation.  Students construct knowledge from the materials of their own lives.

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11. Getting out of the way is a powerful option and sometimes the sole option. Read more about this approach.  Never try, it is the trying that gets in the way.

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12. Literacy is so important.  How does language affect thought? Or thought language?  Was Sapir-Whorf correct?

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13.  The true goal of a teacher is to see their student not need them anymore.        

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14.  Mistakes are a sign of learning. Teach students to be aware of and proud of their mistakes, to use their mistakes.

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15. The teacher in their classroom can affect change more than they think.

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16.  Educators, schools, learning all must move with the times. Are we moving, really changing or just changing the packaging?

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17.  How can we change schools into places less of inculcation and more of emancipation?

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18. The teacher as psychologist, as motivator and influencer.  Passion is the #1 trait of a great teacher.

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19. What all teachers should ask about each lesson.

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20.  A call to make education less competitive and more a celebration of the uniqueness inside each of us, our students.

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21.  How much do you remember from your grade 10 civics class?  Do you even remember that teacher’s name?

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22. A teachers expectation of their students’ abilities is the most important element affecting student achievement. You teach the students you believe them to be. 

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23.  The object of an education is not to know a lot but to know how to act on that knowledge wisely, humanly.

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24. Video is the new text / textbook.  Thus, my own work on EnglishCentral.  

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25. There is a “flat” perception of the internet. Us teachers need to show the other ways it is so important – communication, creation, collaboration, connection, collection and so much more …..

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26. We need to change the very foundations and processes of learning.  It’s the paradigm of education, the culture of schooling that needs to most change.

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27.  So true. We need to inject this and make our classrooms into spaces of deeply caring people.

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28.   The only way to change this world for the better is to invest in education

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29.   Students now understand they are no longer prisoners but in control and with the ability to say “no”.

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30.   Seems so simple.  We should not be reactive but proactive with our teaching practice.

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31.   How to see students as more than outcomes, grades, pluses or minuses ….?

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32.   Is your school a place that reinforces compliance or a place that promotes student critical thinking and asks them to challenge what they have been told as true?

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33.   Informal learning is being recognized for the force it long has been. Ask so many of our famous inventors, scientists, businessmen who were all self taught.

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34.   The teacher as a reflective practitioner. Learning as something personal and only accomplished by our own dialogue within.

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35.   The Socratic approach always places the teacher as a facilitator drawing the student on into self knowledge and knowing him/herself.

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36.   Definitely a necessary and important cautionary note for educators. It’s still all about the learning and about people, our actions and beliefs.

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37.  The role of a teacher is changing dramatically. Are we preparing them for this new job description?

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38.  It is all about making school a place that nurtures the student and develops content, well-adjusted citizens.

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39.   It’s all about relationships.  The teacher as a social wizard.

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40.   Teaching less can be teaching more. Focus on the quality of the learning experiences.

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41.  It’s either pay now or pay much more later …..

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42.  Too much of school is about controlling student behavior without looking at the real cause of that.

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43.   Learning is not something that ever stops. It is a process, a journey and not a destination.

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44.   We can’t say this enough. More decisions per minute than air traffic controllers. It’s tiring, invisible work that is too often underpaid and devalued.

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45.   Let’s not worry about low test scores. Let’s worry about children who fight, kill, pursue violence and remain estranged from the people around them.

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46.   Something to think about ….. it’s easy to have a child, much more difficult to educate one.

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47.   Teach and value students who don’t repeat things back but see things differently. Value good digestion.

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48.   Easy to forget how easy it is for us teachers to inculcate our own values without respecting the free growth of them by our students.

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49.   Still the case. Why is this so? What makes this world so painful for so many, despite our many schools and classrooms?

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50.   Let’s not try to fit round pegs into square holes. That isn’t our job or what education is about.  

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If you enjoyed this – check out these other photo slideshows of inspirational quotes on education.

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ddeubel

Teacher trainer, technology specialist, educational thinker...creator of EFL Classroom 2.0, a social networking site for thousands of EFL / ESL teachers and students around the world.

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