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The Quotable Teacher | 
 enlarge | Creator: Randy Howe
Publisher: The Lyons Press
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $2.10
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Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 1577331
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 7 x 6.4 x 1.2
ISBN: 1585746592
Dewey Decimal Number: 370
EAN: 9781585746590
ASIN: 1585746592
Publication Date: April 1, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: New, unread, unused and in perfect condition with no missing or damaged pages, may have a remainder mark.
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Product Description
"Education is not a preparation for life; education is life itself."
--John Dewey
"Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail."
--Mark Twain
"Teachers, I believe, are the most responsible and important members of
society because their professional efforts affect the fate of the earth."
--Helen Caldicott
"From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life."
--Arthur Ashe
"Everything they become, I also become. And everything about me, they helped
to create."
--Esme Raji Codell
Every morning, writes Randy Howe, hundreds of thousands of teachers get up to face the most demanding audience anyone could ever hope to know--a roomful of students. He learns from those who have stood up before him, great thinkers like Confucius, Henry David Thoreau, Kahlil Gibran, Marie Curie, Thomas Jefferson, bell hooks, James Joyce, Kierkegaard, Maya Angelou, Albert Einstein, B.F. Skinner, Thomas A. Kempis, Charles Dickens, Judith Viorst, and George Bernard Shaw. THE QUOTABLE TEACHER is the perfect gift to inspire new teachers, and to thank favorite ones.
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| Customer Reviews:
Lingering Thoughts October 10, 2006
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Reviewed by Marcelline (Marcy) Burns for Reader Views (9/06)
This small book with a simple title, "The Quotable Teacher," may be too easily overlooked on bookstore shelves. What a mistake that will be! It merits a wide readership. Not only will it inspire teachers and buoy their resolve, it will significantly enlighten those who do not teach ... at least not in a classroom. Of course, all of us do teach children and adults with both negative and positive outcomes, whether or not we are aware that we are doing so, and much of the quoted wisdom is applicable far beyond the formal classroom.
The author has assembled observations that vividly demonstrate for the reader just how difficult it is to spend one's workday in the company of young students and to be productive in one's endeavors with and for them. Consider, for example, a teacher's comment that a first day in an elementary classroom was like trying to hold thirty-five corks under water at the same time. That vivid picture makes one wonder why anyone would willingly attempt to teach!
A philosopher, who may or may not ever have been a teacher, observes that when children are forced to learn, they acquire a loathing for knowledge. Sadly, too, though many of us recognize that the critically important contributions of teachers to society are neither fully recognized nor credited, very few of us do anything at all to remedy that deficit.
So given such a depressing view of teaching, is it possible that the old saw, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach," might be true? Are those individuals who enter the classroom simply incapable of loftier pursuits? Surely we all know that the answers to those questions for the vast majority of teachers are "No." Teachers teach, most often because they are creative, kind, giving individuals, and because there are great rewards for them as practitioners of this worthy profession. Happily, these latter opinions are amply reflected in "The Quotable Teacher." The editor has gleaned wonderfully apt remarks not only about teachers but also about the philosophy and creativity of teaching. His comments prefacing each section are insightful and appropriate, and one senses that he knows firsthand both the challenges and the wonders that teachers routinely encounter.
Not only do I recommend this book and plan to keep a copy of it on my bookshelf, I also intend to place it into the hands of a young friend who is a new teacher this school year. She feels inadequately prepared and truly scared as she begins a career in a high school classroom. She knows that every day she will find disinterested and rebellious young people among the serious students.
She wonders whether her teaching will be sufficiently skilled to reach those who are not willing to invest anything in learning. When she is discouraged, as she surely will be, dipping into the wisdom of this book may help ... at least, a little.
A good man, who also is a fine teacher, anticipates with dread the frustrations of another year in a middle school. As he weighs the pros and cons of a midlife career change into the business world, he speaks with some bitterness about the conditions of teaching. His decision may already have been made, in which case this book will be too late. Nonetheless, I will place it into his hands with the thought that something therein might reignite the sentiments that brought him into the profession and might forestall his decision to leave it.
"The Quotable Teacher" is easy reading, the kind of book to dip into for a few minutes again and again. Whether reading it straight through from beginning to end, or opening it to a page at random, the reader almost certainly will find a thought that will linger. I, for one, like that ... a lot.
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