Quotes About Engagement

I was performing at a New Jersey high school, and I asked a class of 2,000 students, 'How many of you love mathematics?' and only one hand went up. And that was the hand of the maths teacher!

The best teacher is an entertainer.

I became a high school teacher for many years because it was a very tangible, concrete way where I could make a difference, and quite frankly, the kids didn't care who my father had been, because it was late '90s; none of them were around or remembered my father.

I started out as a high school teacher in inner-city Chicago and realized quite quickly that my students weren't that motivated.

Read something of interest every day - something of interest to you, not to your teacher or your best friend or your minister/rabbi/priest. Comics count. So does poetry. So do editorials in your school newspaper. Or a biography of a rock star. Or an instructional manual. Or the Bible.

I loved the idea of making history interesting for kids! When Scholastic approached me about 'The 39 Clues', I immediately started going through the 'greatest hits' from my years as a social studies teacher, and picked the historical characters and eras that most appealed to my students.

As a teacher, my strategy is to encourage questioning. I'm the least authoritarian professor you'll ever meet.

Children are already accustomed to a world that moves faster and is more exciting than anything a teacher in front of a classroom can do.

I was always drawn to teachers who made class interesting. In high school, I enjoyed my American and English literature classes because my teachers, Jeanne Dorsey and Dani Barton, created an environment where interaction was important.

'A Talk to Teachers' showed me that a teacher's work should reject the false pretense of being apolitical and, instead, confront the problems that shape our students' lives.

High school teachers who want to get reluctant readers turned around need to give the students some say in the reading list. Make it collaborative: The students will feel ownership, and everyone will dig in.

You can do and use the skills that you have. The schools need you. The teachers need you. Students and parents need you. They need your actual person: your physical personhood and your open minds and open ears and boundless compassion, sitting next to them, listening and nodding and asking questions for hours at a time.

The best teachers are those who keep students motivated, challenged and flourishing.

Within a single school, teachers often encounter differences in poverty levels, parent involvement, and student readiness.

Prior to being allowed to enter the profession, prospective teachers should be asked to talk with a group of friendly students for at least half an hour and be able to engage them in an interesting conversation about any subject the prospective teacher wants to talk about.

The best teachers, one hopes, don't shout at their students - because they are skilled at wooing as well as demanding the best efforts of others. For the ancient Greeks and Romans, this wooing was a sufficiently fine art in itself to be the central focus of education.

When you have teachers saying, 'I don't have enough time for hands-on activities,' we need to rethink the way we do education.

I could always improvise. Some of my teachers remember me standing in front of the class with a flower on my head, talking about photosynthesis. I'd stop and say, 'Is this working for any of you?' The kids were like, 'What is he doing?'

We have to provide good teachers, good environment, community involvement with schools.

I was reading five or six years ahead of my grade during public school. I was pretty bored. I made a contract with some of my teachers that if I didn't ask too many questions, I could work in the back of the room.

Secondary school parents tell me that they are frustrated, that their teachers ignore them, their children don't give them much feedback because they are adolescents, they feel kind of out of the loop.

You have to give kids things they're interested in reading. That's what teachers do who are engaged in what their students want.

Teachers tell me that they'd like to work more closely with parents.

Children need stimulation and stability. That can come from grandparents, cousins, teachers, nannies, childcare centres - as long as they engage with the children and are really fond of them. There are also times when children need to be left alone to learn to be independent and to encourage their imaginary friends.