Jean Houston Quotes

The voice belonged to Mr. Pzyrbovich, an algebra teacher who was always called Mr. P, for obvious reasons. He has a heavy accent, which a lot of kids said made him hard to understand, although to be fair some of these kids would have never understood algebra anyway.

I had an excellent math and physics teacher in high school named T.C. Patel, and in the university, I had truly dedicated professors in both physics and mathematics who gave me a sound foundation with which to pursue graduate studies.

It's my belief that you can take everyone down a logical path if you take them slowly enough, and the trouble is that mathematical brains can get scrambled a little bit on the way. You get a bad teacher, it messes you up for the rest of the journey.

I think a lot of teachers feel like they're teaching to a test. Our response is you teach to a student, you really teach to the kid.

As one who has taught mathematics at all levels of university instruction, I am well aware of the negative attitude of so many students toward the subject. There are many reasons for this, one of them no doubt being the esoteric, dry way in which we teach the subject. We tend to overwhelm our students with formulas, definitions, theorems, and proofs, but we seldom mention the historical evolution of these facts, leaving the impression that these facts were handed to us, like the Ten Commandments, by some divine authority.

A good teacher offers practice, a bad one offers theories.

[The error in the teaching of mathematics is that] mathematics is expected either to be immediately attractive to students on its own merits or to be accepted by students solely on the basis of the teacher's assurance that it will be helpful in later life. [And yet,] mathematlcs is the key to understanding and mastering our physical, social and biological worlds.

No doubt there are some who, when confronted with a line of mathematical symbols, however simply presented, can only see the face of a stern parent or teacher who tried to force into them a non-comprehending parrot-like apparent competence--a duty and a duty alone--and no hint of magic or beauty of the subject might be allowed to come through.

We think it's about little techniques and tricks, but techniques only take you so far. We need teachers who care about kids, who care about what they teach, and who can communicate with kids.

Kids don't lack capacity, only teachers.

All the time worrying about pushing the children and getting them to be mathematically literate and all that stuff. It's terribly hard on the kids. It's also hard on the teachers. And I think it's totally useless.

The toughest thing for a homeschooler is the same as for a school teacher - shifting from a weak tea vision of math being grinding calculations to a rich frothy mug of math as an active way of thinking.

I love stories about teachers. For some reason I can't get enough of those kind of stories. If I turn a movie on about a teacher, I love it. I love that idea of an adult influence on kids.

I suppose I was lucky enough to be educated at a time when teachers still thought children could handle knowledge. They trusted us. Then there came a time when they decided that because not every kid in the class could understand or remember those things they wouldn't teach them anymore because it wasn't fair on the less good ones. So they withheld knowledge. Then I suppose the next lot of teachers didn't have the knowledge to withhold.

Teachers and librarians are some of my favorite people, especially since I was a teacher myself. I love talking to them because they have wonderful ideas about how to share books, and especially about how to share my books with kids.

Let the teachers learn the kids English. Ol' Diz will learn the kids baseball.

Our educational system now teaches every kid the same thing. It's like rubber stamping!

The instruction of children should aim gradually to combine knowing and doing. Among all sciences mathematics seems to be the only one of a kind to satisfy this aim most completely.

Indeed, there is something to be said for the old math when taught by a poorly trained teacher. He can, at least, get across the fundamental rules of calculation without too much confusion. The same teacher trying to teach new math is apt to get across nothing at all.

The theory of the teacher with all these immigrant kids was that if you spoke English loudly enough they would eventually understand.

Teachers need to integrate technology seamlessly into the curriculum instead of viewing it as an add-on, an afterthought, or an event.

Stars open among the lilies. Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens? This is the silence of astounded souls.

When I'm teaching, I'm not really doing my job if the student who's always comfortable doing wacko stuff all over the page keeps getting gold stars from me for doing wacko stuff all over the page. A riskier assignment for that student, who might be used to hiding behind a lot of formal armor, would be to try to do something straightforward, traditionally, in which they are much more directly laid bare for the reader.

What was on the agenda was school and social life and those kinds of things. So I was the middle of five kids. So I had the great advantage of being able to play up to the older kids and play down to the younger kids and I think that's part of what propelled me to become a teacher at some point in my life. But it was a comfortable childhood. It was a privileged childhood.

I see the stars. I hear the rolling thunder, thy power throughout the universe displayed. Then sings my soul, my Savior, God, to thee.