11 Inspirational Quotes for Teachers
Who doesn’t love some inspirational quotes?
The new school year brings excitement, anxiousness, and if we are honest – some grief as we wave “see you later” at summer. Over the summer, I read The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life by Parker Palmer and wow – did I find some encouragement in those pages! Here are eleven of my favorite inspirational quotes about teaching from those pages! Some of the quotes made me feel seen while others challenged my brain (which I love)! Note, this article may contain Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission for purchases with no additional costs to you.
Good teaching requires self-knowledge: it is a secret hidden in plain sight.
Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher.
We lose heart, in part, because teaching is a daily exercise in vulnerability.
But a good teacher must stand where personal and public meet, dealing with the thundering flow of traffic at an intersection where “weaving a web of connectedness” feels more like crossing a freeway on foot.
The silence that we face in the classroom is the silence that has always been adopted by people in the margin – people who have reason to fear those in power and have learned that there is safety in not speaking.
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When we teach by dripping information into their passive forms, students who arrive in the classroom alive and well become passive consumers of knowledge and are dead on departure when they graduate.
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.
Community cannot take root in a divided life.
But there is a deeper threat to great things: they are killed off by an intellectual arrogance that tries to reduce them to nothing more than the machinations of our minds.
When teaching is reduced to technique, we shrink teachers as well as their craft – and people do not willing return to a conversation that diminishes them.
The growth of any craft depends on shared practice and honest dialogue among the people who do it.
If you enjoyed this list of inspirational quotes from The Courage to Teach – purchase the book and read the entire thing!
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