Some Random Quotes on Life

See All Quotes Below: "The result of college education should be a person whose mind is enlivened and whose imagination is limber." --James Burtchaell (from Sue Maxam, Pace University)

"Life is a journey, enjoy the ride!" (continued below)

"Life is a journey, enjoy the ride!" From the new Disney cartoon movie, "Cars" "Winning isn't everything, but wanting to win is." Coach Vince Lombardi, 1962 "When the One Great Scorer comes to write against your name He marks--not that you won or lost--but how you played the game." Coach Grantland Rice, 1880--1954 "Keep coming back for all they've got, and take it with a grin When disappointment trips you up or failure barks your shin; Keep coming back--and if at last you lose the game of right Let those who whipped you know at least they, too, have had a fight. Grantland Rice

Education and Fun

"Education and Fun are not mutually exclusive"

N. Jeanne Dexter, Southwestern College in Kansas, published in Great Ideas in Teaching Marketing, 2003.

Respect for Education & Teachers

In America Today, Money Talks!

"Respect for education pays dividends. That can come, for example, in the form of higher teacher salaries, or greater public efforts to honor star students."
Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times, May 14, 2006

Today, there may be respect for a good education, but there is certainly no respect for teachers. In America now, society highly respects the people with the most money, power and influence--not necessarily the most education. This includes doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, celebrities at every level, Hollywood stars, fashion designers, hip-hop stars, professional athletes, etc. Where do teachers fit in this picture? The answer is easy--at the bottom of the ladder in terms of income and respect.

In America, Money Talks and the rest walk!

Even people with hardly any meaningful education are above teachers. For example, look at policemen, firemen, bus drivers, sanitation workers, civil servants, construction workers, doormen, etc. They all make higher salaries--and they all get big benefits including health care, pensions, liberal sick leave and vacation, frequent pay raises, etc. And, they have job security, which many teachers do not have unless they are tenured.

For more thoughts on how teachers should be respect, read the quote from Michael Moore below.

Creating the Most CEO's

In Creating CEO's, Wisconsin Equals Harvard

Years ago, most people thought that by going to an Ivy League college would offer a graduate a good career to eventually becoming a leader in a company (President, Chairman, or now called a "CEO"). Today, this is no longer true, with CEO's coming from many different colleges.

In fact, a recent USA TODAY article stated that just as many current CEO positions are filled by graduates from the Unversity of Wisconsin (my undergraduate alma mater) as from Harvard University.

What Are Teachers Worth?

"Teachers, thank you so much for devoting your life to my child!"

According to Michael Moore, the controversial filmmaker/author, this is how society and parents should be thinking about teachers.
His quote in full is the following:

"The majority of dedicated teachers have chosen a profession that pays them less than what some students earn selling Ecstasy, and for that sacrifice we seek to punish them. I don't know about you, but I want the people who have the direct attention of my child more hours a day than I do treated with tender loving care. Those are my kids they're preparing for this world, so why on earth would I want to piss them off?

You would think society's attitude would be something like this:

"Teachers, thank you so much for devoting your life to my child. Is there
ANYTHING I can do to help you? Is there ANYTHING you need? I am here
for you. Why? Because you are helping my child--MY BABY--learn and
grow. Not only will you be largely responsible for her ability to make a
living, but your influence will greatly affect how she views the world, what
she knows about other people in this world, and how she will feel about
herself. I want her to believe she can attempt anything--that no doors are
closed and that no dreams are too distant. I am entrusting the most valuable
person in my life to you for seven hours a day. You, are thus, one of the most
important people in my life. Thank you."

Michael Moore, 2002

What Are Teachers Worth?

My Principles of Teaching

Personal Ideas on Teaching
My Basic Principles of Teaching

1. My best teachers are my students!

2. Listen closely to students--they are my best teachers. As in the principles of marketing, we must meet the needs and wants of our customers (students). Teach a course at their pace--not my pace.

3. Sometimes eliminate planned assignments or a test when they many be unnecessarily redundant or too much extra week. In other words, be flexible and open-minded during the course of a semester.

4. Respect the opinions and attitudes of students as long as they are intelligent, valid and presented in a responsible, respectful manner.

5. Give students the benefit of the doubt. But, don't be a sucker for phony stories and excuses.

6. Be tolerant of the personal needs and problems of students. Understand that they have busy schedules with classes, work and possibly family pressures.

7. Be aware that students have other lives outside the classroom--other classes, jobs, family and boyfriend issues, etc.--in addition to the normal illnesses and learning disabilities for some.

I do not agree with some of the traditional attitudes of some
teachers such as:

1. "Stuff their empty little heads with as many facts as I can whether they like it or not."

2. "Reassign the work until they get it right. (Meaning, I did not give a clear assignment in the first place.)

3. "Punish the students with extra work and pop quizes if they do not perform well in class."

4. "No students deserve above a C or B grade. They are not smart enough for a higher grade."

"The Classroom Crucible"

"The classroom is the crucible in which education takes place. The classroom holds the raw materials of education: the teachers and students; the materials for teaching and learning; the concentrated time for work; and the shared energy that comes from intense, sustained involvement with other people.

The people with the greatest stake in the classrooms are those whose lives are directly affected by the quality of each day's classroom events: teachers and students. They are in the crucible. . . . I came to believe that education policies could not be properly understood as part of a broader picture of education, one solidly based on the realities of daily life in the classrooms.

Throughout its history education policy research has seen teachers and students as passive, unresponsive followers who must be told what to do at every turn. . . . Money and policies, not the classrooms, are the focus of attention.

The metaphors of control and nurturance (better services, counseling, remedial instruction, tutoring, etc.) have been used to support highly specific policies on teaching methods, textbooks, instructional materials, and testing."

From "The Classroom Crucible" by Edward Pauly, 1991

"Knowledge is All"

According to the management "guru" Peter Drucker in his book "The Next Society":

"The next society will be a knowledge society. Knowledge will be its key resource, and knowledge workers will be the dominant group in its workforce. Its three main characteristics will be:

* Borderless, because knowledge travels even more effortlessly than money.

* Upward mobility, available to everyone through easily acquired formal education.

* The potential for failure as well as success. Anyone can acquire the "means of production", i.e., the knowledge required for the job, but not everyone can win.

Information technology, although one of many new features of the next society, is already having one hugely important effect: it is allowing knowledge to spread near-instantly, and making it accessible to everyone."

"Is Harvard Overrated?"

Special Report in U.S. News & World Report,
Aug. 29, 2005

"Despite the school's well-documented academic prowess, there seems to be at least a shadow of a doubt. In a survey conducted in 2002, Harvard ranked fifth from the bottom of a group of 31 elite colleges when it came to overall student satisfaction. . . .Students still complained about the inaccessibility of faculty as well as the quality of instruction and advising."

"At smaller schools, you're going to have substantive academic conversations with professors who know your name. Here, you see a famous professor walk through the Yard, and it's almost mutual avoidance."

" 'Listen, the Core program is really disappointing. The lack of access to professors is incredible. Advising is abominable,' says Alicia Menendez, a women's studies major. "All that said, it's the students that make this place special.' "

THE NEW YORK TIMES, EDUCATION LIFE SECTION,
January 8, 2006

Title: "What Every Student Should Know"
Subtitle: "Even Harvard, as it replaces its well-known Core, isn't quite sure."

DUHH? Harvard Discovers a Real Core Curriculum

A new faculty report on revising the Core Curriculum at Harvard "essentially dismantles Harvard's well-known Core Curriculum, which requires the students to choose many courses from a fairly narrow menu demonstrating "ways of knowing"--say, moral reasoning and the study of foreign cultures. Instead, it favors a system of distribution requirements whereby students must take a certain number of courses in each of three general areas: arts and humanities, the social sciences and science and technology."

"This is a system, of course, that many other universities have been using for decades."

"It's old wine in new bottles. . . .It's not hard to imagine dozens of deans privately pulling their hair over Harvard turning up in the news for something that their universities did sooner and better. In 2003, for example, Yale issued a report, four years in the making, that winds up in more or less the same place as Harvard's but is far more eloquent and detailed."

"Higher Education: Like Processed Meat"

Quotes from "The McDonaldization of Society" by George Ritzner

"The modern university has, in various ways, become a highly irrational place. . . like cattle run through a meat-processing plant.
The large lecture classes, contained tightly by the clock, make it virtually impossible to know professors personally. At best, students get to know a graduate assistant teaching a discussion section.
In sum, students feel like little more than objects into which knowledge is poured as they move along an information-providing and degree-granting educational assembly line."