Bel Kaufman Quotes
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What makes you think you’re so special? Just because you’re a teacher? What he was really saying was: You are so special. You are my teacher. Then teach me, help me, Hey, Teach, I’m lost—which way do I go? I’m tired of going up the down staircase.
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Now, long before it came to the final reckoning, to payment of promise implied, she began to set the stage for the great renunciation. “Let’s not spoil it,” she would say, caressing the man’s lapels with long silken fingers. “Let’s not spoil what we have . . .
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The long procession of men flickered before her like faces on cards quickly riffled—blurred, two-dimensional. Only their desire for her mattered.
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People ate bread made of the shells of peas because there was no flour.
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Why are we quarreling about a tie? flashed through her mind; at the same time, as if propelled by a force outside of herself, she tore it from his hand and flung it furiously into the wastebasket.
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Learning is a process of mutual discovery for teacher and pupil. Keep an open mind to their unexpected responses.
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When giving comes directly from the heart, it can never disappoint or embarrass.
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There was only this one life to live; the unpardonable sin was to waste it.
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And if this wasn’t the happiness she had once so fiercely demanded, at least she had come to terms with life. That was probably as close to happiness as you could get.
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Sam had a child’s faith in the healing power of the morning, she thought later, as she lay sleepless at his side; he believed that a good night’s sleep could iron out all the accumulated wrinkles of the day. She resented his ability to fall asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow while she tossed restlessly in bed; his even breathing was an affront to her wakefulness.
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She hasn't been back since, and we have a young per diem substitute who had taught shoes in a vocational high school on her last job. Though her license is English, she had been called to the Shoe Department, where she traced the history of shoes from Cinderella and Puss in Boots through Galsworthy and modern advertising. "Best shoe lesson they ever had," she told me cheerfully. "Until a cop came in, dangling handcuffs: 'Lady, that kid I gotta have.'" To her, Calvin Coolidge is Paradise.
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Her disappointment was minor compared to her astonishment. “Again I didn’t win? But last year I didn’t win also!”
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The past still had its future.
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As for Walter—he was a man constantly beset by tiny pinpricks of fate.
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In one of Chekhov’s short stories, a little boy is drawing a picture. His father asks him why the man in the picture is taller than the house. “If he were smaller,” says the child reasonably, “you couldn’t see his eyes.” ENTRY:
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That was what marriage was: the ultimate knowledge of each other, with no need to preen or to pretend. Even its irritations came from closeness.
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There is a premium on conformity, and on silence. Enthusiasm is frowned upon, since it is likely to be noisy. The Admiral had caught a few kids who came to school before class, eager to practice on the typewriters. He issued a manifesto forbidding any students in the building before 8:20 or after 3:00—outside of school hours, students are "unauthorized." They are not allowed to remain in a classroom unsupervised by a teacher. They are not allowed to linger in the corridors. They are not allowed to speak without raising a hand. They are not allowed to feel too strongly or to laugh too loudly. Yesterday, for example, we were discussing "The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars/ But in ourselves that we are underlings." I had been trying to relate Julius Caesar to their own experiences. Is this true? I asked. Are we really masters of our fate? Is there such a thing as luck? A small boy in the first row, waving his hand frantically: "Oh, call on me, please, please call on me!" was propelled by the momentum of his exuberant arm smack out of his seat and fell on the floor. Wild laughter. Enter McHabe. That afternoon, in my letter-box, it had come to his attention that my "control of the class lacked control.
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Extraordinary—that Willowdale Academy and Calvin Coolidge High School should both be institutions of learning! The contrast is stunning. I had a leisurely tea with the Chairman of the English Department. I saw several faculty members sitting around in offices and lounges, sipping tea, reading, smoking. Through the large casement windows bare trees rubbed cozy branches. (One of my students had written wistfully of a dream-school that would have "windows with trees in them"!) Old leather chairs, book-lined walls, air of cultivated casualness, sound of well-bred laughter.
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Then, aware once more of her obligation, she asked politely: “You only wrriter, or your work also?” “I hope to teach English one day.”
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The clerical work is par for the course. "Keep on file in numerical order" means throw in wastebasket. You'll soon learn the language. "Let it be a challenge to you" means you're stuck with it; "interpersonal relationships" is a fight between kids; "ancillary civic agencies for supportive discipline" means call the cops; "Language Arts Dept." is the English office; "literature based on child's reading level and experiential background" means that's all they've got in the Book Room; "non-academic-minded" is a delinquent; and "It has come to my attention" means you're in trouble.
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If a teacher wants to know something why doesn't she look it up herself instead of making we students do it? We benefit ourselves more by listening to her, after all she's the teacher!
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I feel no different than I felt at 99, 98 or 97. Just because you live a long time, you get all this attention. Just because you survived? Of course, I survived a lot.
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Children are the true connoisseurs. What’s precious to them has no price, only value.
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That I was a writer was further proof of God’s far-sightedness; she was convinced that by some magic of propinquity she would acquire a mastery of the English language.