2,279 Quotes About Teaching

If we taught music the way we try to teach engineering, in an unbroken four year course, we could end up with all theory and no music. When we study music, we start to practice from the beginning, and we practice for the entire time...

I began teaching my son how to shoot when he was two, starting with the basics of a BB rifle. My theory is that kids get into trouble because of curiosity—if you don’t satisfy it, you’re asking for big problems. If you inform them and carefully instruct them on safety when they’re young, you avoid a lot of the trouble. My son has learned to respect weapons. I’ve always told him, if you want to use a gun, come get me. There’s nothing I like better than shooting.

Our approach to education has remained largely unchanged since the Renaissance: From middle school through college, most teaching is done by an instructor lecturing to a room full of students, only some of them paying attention.

One of the unique aspects of the Bible is that it is primarily a story illustrated by teaching and not primarily teaching illustrated by story.

Be different-if you don't have the facts and knowledge required, simply listen. When word gets around that you can listen when others tend to talk, you will be treated as a sage.

My colleague Sen. Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania Republican, erroneously suggested that I support the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to biological evolution. That simply is not true. ... Unlike biological evolution, intelligent design is not a genuine scientific theory and, therefore, has no place in the curriculum of our nation's public school science classes.

True teaching cannot be learned from text-books any more than a surgeon can acquire his skill by reading about surgery.

But you know, where did the Brontes go to college? Where did George Eliot go to college? Where did Thomas Paine or Thomas Jefferson or George Washington go? Did George Washington go to college? This idea which we now have that people ought to have these credentials is really ridiculous. Where did Homer go to college?

Teaching is not the mere imparting of knowledge but the cultivation of an inquiring mind.