Esther McVey Quotes

Why not whip the teacher when the pupil misbehaves?

My first career was as a coach and a teacher.

I stopped and gazed on the little dull man who was being paid to be a teacher of teachers. I turned and walked to the door, slammed it closed with a bang, and broken glass crashed to the floor. There was uproar behind me in the class, which did not interest me at all.

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 was a teacher, I'd walk into the classroom. I stood at the board. I was the man. I directed operations. I was an intellectual and artistic and moral traffic cop, and I - and I would direct the class, most of the time.

Both of my sisters have been teachers and they used to say you get asked between 300 and 600 questions every day which you have to answer. That's exactly what directing is. And the vast majority of those questions are not very interesting really, but they need somebody to make a decision - a good one or a bad one - and they follow it.

I tell young teachers who are determined to dissent from some of the Draconian aspects of the current orthodoxy that the best form of protection is to be incredibly good at what you do and keep good discipline in class.

I don't think most teachers realize how much impact they have.

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

When I started out in life I wanted to teach.

A teacher should have maximal authority, and minimal power.

Having been an educator for so many years I know that all a good teacher can do is set a context, raise questions or enter into a kind of a dialogic relationship with their students.

I feel really good in the teacher role.

Good teachers know how to bring out the best in students.

It is easier for a tutor to command than to teach.

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.

There were certainly no spells at my school. More like a smack in the mouth.

As a former high school teacher and a student in a class of 60 urchins at St. Brigid's grammar school, I know that education is all about discipline and motivation. Disadvantaged students need extra attention, a stable school environment, and enough teacher creativity to stimulate their imaginations. Those things are not expensive.

A father is a person who's around, participating in a child's life. He's a teacher who helps to guide and shape and mold that young person, someone for that young person to talk to, to share with, their ups and their downs, their fears and their concerns.

Two things rule the world -- reward and punishment.

You used to be our teacher, but right now, our teacher doesn’t look quite as wise.

There's nothing in the world like getting up in front of a high-school classroom in New York City. They won't give you a break if you don't hold them. There's no escape.

Show me one director who does not get angry on their assistant for something that has gone wrong. But it is done out of my love. It's just fun when I tell them to face a wall and stand or kneel down in a corner. It's not like I want to punish them harshly. It's not to humiliate; it is to teach.

Smoking cigarettes and writing something nasty on the wall, teacher sends you to the Principal's office down the hall.

I have always felt that the true text-book for the pupil is his teacher