Teachers - Quotes

The History Teacher 

Trying to protect his students' innocence 

he told them the Ice Age was really just 

the Chilly Age, a period of a million years 

when everyone had to wear sweaters. 

 And the Stone Age became the Gravel Age, 

named after the long driveways of the time. 

The Spanish Inquisition was nothing more 

than an outbreak of questions such as 

"How far is it from here to Madrid?" 

"What do you call the matador's hat?" 

The War of the Roses took place in a garden, 

and the Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom on Japan. 

The children would leave his classroom

for the playground to torment the weak 

and the smart, 

mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses, 

while he gathered up his notes and walked home 

past flower beds and white picket fences, 

wondering if they would believe that soldiers 

in the Boer War told long, rambling stories 

designed to make the enemy nod off.

 ― Billy Collins, Questions About Angels

The best teacher is not the one who knows most but the one who is most capable of reducing knowledge to that simple compound of the obvious and wonderful. ― H.L. Mencken

 True teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create their own.
 ― Nikos Kazantzakis