Michael Gove Quotes

It's hard to get an education when teachers spend 70 percent of their time trying to discipline students.

In schools with a history of chaos, the teacher who can keep the classroom calm becomes virtually indispensable.

In America the schools have become too permissive, the kids now are controlling the schools, the tail is wagging the dog. We've got to make a change there and get it back to where the teachers have control of the classrooms.

When I look back now I realize I was such an obnoxious kid but, you know, I went to schools like you, like a public school in New York so compared to the anarchy that was going on there, they really wouldn't - I wasn't like a bad kid. I saw people come in and punch the teachers.

I quickly learned that teaching students was far more complicated than managing adults. Why, you may ask? Here are three simple reasons: Your employees are paid to listen to you, students are not. In business, employees are selected based upon a search and interview process. Teachers do not select their students. In business, an insubordinate employee is fired. An insubordinate student is merely one more challenge for a classroom teacher.

When I talk to teachers they tell me the things they'd most like from any government are a reduction in bureaucracy, support to help ensure good discipline and a reformed Ofsted.

A teacher should have maximal authority, and minimal power.

Students follow rules. Students complete assignments. The job of students - in part, at least - is to please their teachers. Now, I realize I may be exaggerating a little here, but basically I think I'm right: students do what they're told.

I had a Spanish teacher in high school. I rarely got in trouble in her room because I felt I was disappointing her if I got a bad grade. That had more power over me than teachers who told me I talked too much. That level of respect I had for her made me not want to fail for her.

Most teachers are not trained in how boys and girls learn differently.

I think it's appropriate that we simplify, clarify and strengthen, so instead of this nebulousness, we have clarity and authority invested in teachers once more.

Teachers themselves know if there's a colleague who can't keep control or keep the interest of their class, it affects the whole school.

I'm committed to working with teachers.

Cameras in classrooms are no substitute for greater authority by parents and teachers.

I was not a good teacher; I didn't have the sort of edge one should have on the students, so I decided to do something else.

Let's reintroduce corporal punishment in the schools - and use it on the teachers.

The problem with public school is not overcrowding in the classroom. The problem is not teacher unions. The problem is not underfunding or lack of computer equipment. The problem is your damn kids.

A music teacher. It was in the inner city at a school called Horace Mann. I think I was most effective when the kids pissed me off.

Teachers are asked to do so much, and they can't be good at every single thing.

You have to have teachers who are empowered to facilitate great teaching.

As a former teacher, I know how frustrating it must be to watch students walk out of class, particularly if they have important exams on the horizon.

We need to make sure teachers are in schools and that children have teachers.

Teachers must learn how to teach ... they need only to be taught more effective ways of teaching.

The amount of psychology which is necessary to all teachers need not be very great.

School is established, not in order that it should be convenient for the children to study, but that teachers should be able to teach in comfort. The children's conversations, motion, merriment are not convenient for the teacher, and so in the schools, which are built on the plan of prisons, are prohibited.