I’ve been working on my PhD in engineering for the past five years, but my kids don’t necessarily see that as work.
As we were driving past Walmart one day, my son spotted a Now Hiring sign and suggested that I could get a job there.

Hoping to make a point, I asked, “Do you think they’re looking for an engineer?”

“Oh, sure,” he said. “They’ll hire anybody.”

Christopher Fields, Fort Collins, Colorado

My ESL students try so hard and are so appreciative.

One student paid me the ultimate compliment when she said, “You teach English good.”

Another assured me, “I will always forget you.”

And a third insisted, “I thank you from the heart of my bottom.”

Ellen Israel, Alamo, California

“No one learns as much about a subject as one who is forced to teach it.”

Peter F. Drucker

“Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.”
Edmund Burke

“Indeed, learning to write may be part of learning to read. For all I know, writing comes out of a superior devotion to reading.”
Eudora Welty, On Writing

“Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.”

E.M. Forster

“In the business people with expertise, experience and evidence will make more profitable decisions than people with instinct, intuition and imagination.”
Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

Why have so many schools reduced the time and emphasis they place on art, music, and physical education? The answer is beyond simple: those areas aren’t measured on the all-important tests. You know where those areas are measured… in life! Art, music, and a healthy lifestyle help us develop a richer, deeper, and more balanced perspective. Never before have we needed more of an emphasis on the development of creativity, but schools have gone the exact opposite direction in an effort to make the best test-taking automatons possible. Our economy no longer rewards people for blindly following rules and becoming a cog in the machine. We need risk-takers, outside-the-box thinkers, and entrepreneurs; our school systems do the next generation a great disservice by discouraging these very skills and attitudes. Instead of helping and encouraging them to find and develop their unique strengths, they’re told to shut up, put the cell phones away, memorize these facts and fill in the bubbles.

Dave Burgess, Teach Like a Pirate: Increase Student Engagement, Boost Your Creativity, and Transform Your Life As an Educator

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.”

— William Arthur Ward

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”

— Albert Einstein