Quotation Saturday
The weeks are flying by so quickly; I can’t believe August is nearly over! I go back to school this Monday and I’m looking forward to it. Confucius was right when he said, “Choose a job you love, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.” I have two jobs, and I’m not sure which one I like better! I teach, and I write. I don’t think I could choose between them; it would be like choosing my favorite child! Not possible!
Here we go:
1. A book is somehow sacred. A dictator can kill and maim people, can sink to any kind of tyranny and only be hated, but when books are burned the ultimate in tyranny has happened. –John Steinbeck
2. You cannot dream y ourself into a character; you must hammer and forge one for yourself. –James Anthony Froude
3. There is nothing so fatal to character as half-finished tasks. –David Lloyd George
4. . . . looked as if she had walked straight out of the ark. –Sydney Smith
5. Reading Christians are growing Christians. When Christians cease to read, they cease to grow. –John Wesley
6. I have often thought what a melancholy world this would be without children, and what an inhuman world without the aged. –S.T. Coleridge
7. In the man whose childhood has known caresses and kindness, there is always a fibre of memory that can be touched to gentle issues. –George Eliot
8. If you haven’t grace, the Lord can give it to you. If you haven’t learning, I’ll help you to get it. But if you haven’t common sense, neither I, nor the Lord, can give it to you. –John Brown
9. If we rightly estimate what we call good and evil, we shall find it lies much in comparison. –John Locke
10. What cannot be altered must be borne, not blamed. –Thomas Fuller
11. Do you regard your boss as an ass or an asset? –Anon.
12. Even cowards can endure hardships; only the brave can endure suspense. –Mignon McLaughlin
13. Beauty is only skin deep, but it’s a valuable asset if you’re poor and haven’t any sense. –Kin Hubbard
14. Whoever thinks of going to bed before 12:00 is a scoundrel. –Samuel Johnson
15. If you look around, and you give a damn, it makes you want to commit suicide. –Edward Durell Stone
16. It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop. –Confucius
17. Every skunk that fights the ventilator thinks it is Don Quixote. –Stanislaw J. Lee
18. All sunshine makes the desert. –Arabian proverb
19. Men seldom, or rather never for a length of time, and deliberately, rebel against anything that does not deserve rebelling against. –Thomas Carlyle
20. When a man has not a good reason for doing a thing, he has one good reason for letting it alone. –Sir Walter Scott
21. Every mind has its dregs. –Joseph Joubert
22. Music is essentially useless, as life is. –George Santayana
23. Man sees your actions, but God your motives. –Thomas a Kempe
24. Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable. –Leonard Bernstein
25. Memory feeds a culture, nourishes hope, and makes a human, human. –Elie Wiesel
26. No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad. –Thomas Carlyle
27. No man will be fond of what forces him daily to feel himself inferior. –Samuel Johnson
28. Metaphysician: A blind man in a dark room – looking for a black hat – which isn’t there. –Charles Bowen
29. When a fellow makes the same mistake twice he’s got to throw up both hands and own up to carelessness or cussedness. –George Horace Lorimer
30. Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does, the better. –Andrea Gide
31. Actions will be judged according to their intentions. –Muhammad
32. More important than the fact that a nation is judged by its art is the fact that a nation lives by its art, and the things men live by are more important than the things they live on. –Allen Tucker
33. Those who love art and are truly susceptible to its spell, do die young in the sense that they remain young to their dying day. –Otto Herman Kahn
34. It is very natural. . . for basketball coaches, like other insane people, to think they are somebody else. –Doc Carlson
35. The Bible is to us what the Star was to the wise men, but if we spend all our time in gazing upon it, observing its motions, and admiring its splendor, without being led to Christ by it, the use of it will be lsot to us. –Thomas Adams
36. Artists are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. –Jonathan Miller
37. Analysis kills spontaneity. The grain once ground into flour germinates no more. –Frederic Amiel
38. Unasked advice is a trespass on sacred privacy. –Henry S. Haskins
39. Every tree and plant in the meadow seemed to be dancing, those which average eyes would see as fixed and still. –Rumi
40. He who is too much afraid of being duped has lost the power of being magnanimous. –Frederic Amiel
41. When it gets dark enough you can see the stars. –Lee Salk
42. Anger repressed can poison a relationship as surely as the cruelest words. –Dr. Joyce Brothers
43. A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every district – all studied and appreciated as they merit – are the principle support of virtue, morality, and civil liberty. –Benjamin Franklin
44. Aspire to inspire before we expire. –Albert Clarke Jr.
45. The worst men often give the best advice. –Phillip James Bailey
46. The power of applying attention, steady and undissipated, to a single object, is the sure mark of a superior genius. –Phillip Dorner Stanhope, Lord Chesterfield.
47. A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams. –John Barrymore
48. Things don’t turn up in this world until somebody turns them up. –James A. Garfield
49. It takes a long time to become young. –Picasso
50. When we are out of sympathy with the young, then I think our work in this world is over. –George McDonald
Hula Doula flew out from Colorado to visit me a few days ago and then she WENT BACK HOME! Why did she leave me? I miss her!!!! It was so much fun having her here; she’s a wonderful guest. Hula, please come back soon! Bring everybody in your entire extended family!
My son is visiting for the weekend. It’s so nice to have my baby here. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to the fact that my children are VISITING when they’re here. This used to be their home, and now they have their own and mine is a place to visit. Sigh.
And now I’m going to the kitchen to make a ham sandwich with the last of the ham before he discovers it. Yes, I’m a good mommy. 🙂
Important Things
The world is so full of lovely, kind, honest people. Seriously, I agree with Anne Frank who said, “In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
How is it that in a world full of decent people, so many indecent and horrible people are able to rise to such levels of power and popularity?
Our kids can tell you the name of Britney’s fourth nanny’s dog, but they can’t give you the name of a living scientist.
Many sports enthusiasts can tell you what Lou Gehrig’s stats were on any given date, but they can’t tell you the name of the disease that killed him, and they don’t know why he considered himself “. . . the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”
Small children can sing every word to songs with lyrics that would have gotten us expelled from grade school, but they don’t know the lyrics to the National Anthem.
People of any age can tell you all about their “rights,” but many of them know (and care) NOTHING about their responsibilities.
People such as the Brangelinas make shacking up and having illegitimate babies seem not only respectable, but desireable, and our young people are falling for it.
Athletes are cool, and Nerds are just geeky, even though just a few years down the line, those athletes will probably end up working for the nerds. Or wishing they could.
I believe that those in authority WANT people to believe that shallow people and things are important, and that people and things that really ARE important are embarrassing and trivial. This mindset enables the power-hungry to draw more and more weak-minded people into their belief system.
Book that makes one think and question and wonder? DANGEROUS TO OUR BELIEF SYSTEM! Which means, of course, that the belief system is so shaky that a simple question from a child will topple it. Or, even worse, require someone who is entrenched and comfortable to fear that the cocoon will be opened and a ray of (shudder) unfamiliar light might shine down upon it, revealing things as they actually are.
A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are made for. –Grace Murray Hopper
Administrations that consider the score on a standardized test to be the end and all of what education is, are sadly mistaken and even purposely ignorant. IGNORANT BECAUSE THEY WANT TO BE. I believe in passing tests, but it’s the knowledge base that’s important, not the ability to bubble on paper with a #2 pencil within a certain time allotment.
A child with knowledge of basic prefixes, suffixes, and roots will be able to learn new words by himself/herself. A child with knowledge of basic Greek and Roman mythology will be able to see connections between the night sky and NASA and fairy tales and modern literature and science. A child with a vast storehouse of nursery rhymes will be able to learn history faster and more thoroughly, again because of the connections.
An echo is not original. Good scores are not the intention of education. Good scores are nice, of course, but a monkey with a pencil can get a good score if it is given enough chances, simply through trial and error and the process of elimination.
Many kids today refuse to do chores or work at anything unless there is an immediate reward dangled before their dazzled eyes. “Raise your math grade a whole letter and you’ll get that Wii you’ve been wanting.” What happened to “Do your best and we’ll all be so proud of you!”
Like, “Where’s my candy, man?”
Teachers are told, with more than a hint of threat, to make sure the athletes pass so they can play in the game Friday night. Athletes are no longer representatives of a proud educational system; they are a source of revenue and often pawns in the power -play between stupid parents and equally stupid administrations. Good parents will encourage sportsmanship and good grades and excellent citizenship, and good parents understand that in a perfect world, nobody would represent the school and community on any kind of playing field without all three. It’s the bad parents who insist that their kid be a starter even though he’s failing math and English and hasn’t turned in any science homework since the first week of school. Why should he? He knows he’s going to get anything he wants anyway; Daddy and Mommy will see to it. Self esteem rules.
I will never understand why so many parents don’t see that self-esteem is something to be EARNED. It can’t be given. Any kid understands this; why can’t adults? Trophies for showing up are ridiculous. I’ve heard kids laughing in the restrooms, year after year, over the beaming adults in an audience because a kid got a trophy for the two points he made in that one game. A TROPHY! I am not speaking of special olympics; I’m talking about the regular stuff.
When a kid can get a limo ride and a free lunch for not hurting anybody for three days in a row, why should any kid try hard? Good kids don’t generally get ANYTHING! It seems to be the bad kids who are catered to and rewarded for bringing a pencil, or not drawing blood for a whole day. Self esteem? The self-esteem of our good kids is going down every day, because we don’t have time to give them any attention. They’re well-behaved and working, and we just don’t have time to tell them how much we appreciate them because we’re too busy breaking up yet another fight between the same kids who do this on a daily basis and can’t be kicked out for whatever reason the law or community or parents have decided to apply. And if a nice kid tries to defend himself/herself, they’re punished for it. Bah.
Schools are not set up for kids who really, really love learning. Schools are set up to cater to the lowest common denominator. Kids who love Ravel? Say what? Kids who talk in street code and don’t even know how to speak any language fluently? Oh YEAH.
Kids who love science? Sorry, that’s not being tested this year so we’re not offering it. We’ll put you in this developmental reading class so you can help the teacher tutor the freshmen who still can’t read but who have been promoted yearly anyway. Have a nice year.
People who have power have changed our educational system until it’s become this way. How did we let it happen? Kind, decent, intelligent people are the majority, and yet, they seem to have no say whatsoever in how things are being run.
I don’t get it.
No Child Left Behind? Ain’t gonna happen. And why is that? I can tell you why.
A lot of children WANT to be left behind. They don’t care, and neither do their parents. Contrary to what many people believe, learning is NOT up to the teacher; it’s the child’s responsibility. And if the best teacher in the universe is talking to a brick wall, bred by two brick walls, not much is going to happen. And guess who is blamed?
I think we should try as hard as we can to help all children, but that we should concentrate on the ones who WANT to learn. And with those children, we should give every drop of life’s blood that we have. Otherwise, the next time your kid’s history book is revised, the new edition will have a chapter about Britney and Lindsey and Paris, and their contribution to our culture.
Inventors. Doctors. Philanthropists. Missionaries. Neighbors. Parents. Mathematicians. Decent role models. Kind, generous people. Discoverers. Good teachers. Athletes who can REALLY do it. (not the ones who can’t do it without drugs, etc.) Men and women who don’t leave when a better deal comes along. People with integrity. People with a moral compass. Ministers. (Preachers gross me out) Hard workers. Authors. Poets. Scientists. Storekeepers. Masons. Construction workers. Etc.
These used to be our children’s role models. How did we allow it all to change? Because, you know, it couldn’t have changed this completely without the complete cooperation and approval of an awful lot of people, whether they did it consciously or not.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think Britney is going to tell us all about how she turned her drug-battered body back into a muscle machine and decided it was fun, after all, to be a mother to her two very confused little sons. This week, anyway. Stay tuned.
I can’t wait. It’s IMPORTANT.
I will always agree with Anne Frank, but it does get more difficult every day.
Students: A Comparison/Contrast
I love the community college concept. Not everybody is ready for university, especially not all at the same given time in their lives, and a community college is a place where students can get a start on a degree that they might finish at university. Community college is also the perfect place to earn a two or four-year degree in something that a university might not even handle. Many students use the community college as a transition.
I love the idea of mixed ages in a classroom. Older people have a lot to learn from the young, and the young desperately need good role models who are NOT related to them. I wish our public schools weren’t so concerned with age-grouping and more concerned with placing a student, whatever his/her age, in the classroom that best serves the student’s academic progress. If that means 17-year-olds sitting next to sweet little 9-year-olds, so be it. If discipline was enforced as it should be, there would be no problems whatsoever, and nobody should be allowed to move on to the next level until the current level has been mastered. Wouldn’t that mean some kids would never graduate at all? Yup. Them’s the breaks. And I believe an employer should have the right to assume that a diploma guarantees a certain amount of literacy. As things stand now, we’ve got college students asking where the pencil bin is kept, and trying to turn in essays using the same code they use with their cell phones.
I have many students who are fresh out of high school, but most of my students have been out of high school for a long, long time. Factories are shutting down in this area, one after another, and people who believed Ford or General Electric or RCA would take good care of them if they devoted their lives to it are learning otherwise. Good people who supposed they’d be working in these factories until they retired are out on the streets, and now they have to learn a lot of new skills so they can get a new job. These people are serious students; they mean business, whereas many of the 18-year-olds are still looking around the classroom for that bin of community pencils, asking if they can do something “funner” in place of the required ten essays, and texting their friends underneath the table.
My adult students seldom miss a day. My teen students miss all the time, and are genuinely amazed when I won’t give them a list of “all the stuff I missed when I was in Cancun.”
My adult students do every assignment and turn it in on time, or even earlier. My teen students forget their books, forget we were having a quiz today, forget their pencils, and didn’t know we even had an assignment. “Can I turn it in next week? No? What do you mean, no?”
Well, Doogie, when I say “No,” the hidden meaning is actually, well, guess what? “No.”
My older students consider it their responsibility to get their books, buy their pencils and paper, and bring it all to class every day. My teen students hate to lug those huge books around, assume I’m going to furnish them with pencil and paper, and often sleep during class. And it’s not because they’ve got a job that kept them up late.
My adult students turn off their cell phones when class starts. The younger students will take a call right in the middle of a test, and they seldom stop texting. I used to ignore the college rule that all cell phones must be turned off, because adult students occasionally had children or older parents to consider. However, I later had to make a rule that cell phones must be placed on top of the table and not touched while class is going on. A lot of the younger students can’t deal with the withdrawal, and try to argue about it with me.
My adult students are seldom late, and if they are, it was for a good reason AND they cleared it with me earlier. If it was a true emergency, they bring documentation. My younger students are almost always late, sometimes as much as an hour, and it’s usually because they overslept.
Most of my adult students understand that if they don’t learn these new skills, their families are not going to have any means of support. Most of my younger students are out to get a degree.
My adult students, even those who’ve been out of school for thirty or forty years, are almost always fairly good spellers. My teens rely on spell-check for even the small, simple words.
My adult students are chagrined when they misspell a word on an essay. My teen students get angry because they can’t use their cutesy texting codes on a formal college essay.
I am speaking in generalities, of course. I’ve had moronic adult students, and I’ve had superior teenage students, but for the most part, the generalities are the truth.
What has happened to our public schools that they are graduating these kids who can’t do even the simplest academic things? WHY were they graduated? Are they “parental fantasies?” I’ve had my share of those, and they’re not any fun. Are they troublemakers, and the school just wanted them out of there? Did they just get too old, and the principal didn’t like the idea of them wandering the halls?
Many of my adult students never graduated from high school; they quit school to work in the factory, never dreaming that Ford would sell them out with not so much as a backward glance. Many of them have a GED, not a diploma.
They still do better than the majority of my teen students.
I really, truly, honestly wish that a high school diploma was reserved only for those students who earned it, all by themselves. Maybe then it would mean something.
As things stand now, a diploma could very well mean your kid was just such a pain in the neck, well, ANYTHING to get him out of there. Or it could mean your kid showed up. Or it could mean “oh, young lady, we know you can’t do it but we don’t want your self-esteem to suffer so here you go, a diploma, just like all the other kids are getting.” Or it might mean the school wants your kid out before he’s old enough to collect social security.
Good luck, employers. Have fun figuring out which applicants EARNED that diploma. It shouldn’t take you long.
And good luck, serious students who have to sit by people who troll in late, empty-handed, and expect a college professor to give them a pencil and who then complain that the eraser is so small.
Oh, and parents who demand that their kid be given a viable diploma when the kid hasn’t earned it? Shame on you.
Administrators who let these parents get away with that? Shame on you.
Not quite last but most certainly least, Kid who skipped through high school in Mommy’s pocket and who expects to skip through college the same way: You’ve got some surprises coming, baby.
And to my students who mean business, do the work, write the papers, participate in class, and have good manners: Thank you. I appreciate you every single moment. Tell your parents they did a good job with you. I love you. I’d like to clone you and fill the room with you.
And I’m so sorry you have to sit by Cell Phone Phil and the Borrowed Pencils.
