Sunday, September 1, 2013

Tribute to Rafe




I love--love--love-- Rafe Esquith. He is such an inspirational teacher to me. He is a genuine, one of a kind educator, and when I feel doubt about myself as a teacher, his advice always makes me feel normal again. The following are some helpful quotes for all teachers who strive to make a difference, but understand it takes patience, passion, and understanding each and every day.

The following are a list of quotes by Rafe. I hope that they bring comfort to all teachers new and old.

“There are so many charlatans in the world of education. They teach for a couple of years, come up with a few clever slogans, build their websites, and hit the lecture circuit. In this fast-food-society, simple solutions to complex problems are embraced far too often. We can do better. I hope that people who read this book realize that true excellence takes sacrifice, mistakes, and enormous amounts of effort. After all, there are no shortcuts.” Rafe 

“I'd like to give every young teacher some good news. Teaching is a very easy job. Administrators will tell you what to do. You'll be given books and told chapters to assign the children. Veteran teachers will show you the correct way to fill out forms and have your classes line up.

And here's some more good news. If you do all of these things badly, they let you keep doing it. You can go home at three o'clock every day. You get about three months off a year. Teaching is a great gig.

However, if you care about what you're doing, it's one of the toughest jobs around.” 


“To quote the exceptional teacher Marva Collins, "I will is more important than IQ." It is wonderful to have a terrific mind, but it's been my experience that having outstanding intelligence is a very small part of the total package that leads to success and happiness. Discipline, hard work, perserverance, and generosity of spirit are, in the final analysis, far more important.” 


“Most of us have participated in the trust exercise in which one person falls back and is caught by a peer. Even if the catch is made a hundred times in a row, the trust is broken forever if the friend lets you fall the next time as a joke. Even if he swears he is sorry and will never let you fall again, you can never fall back without a seed of doubt.” 

“That's the beauty of art--we strive for perfection but never achieve it. The journey is everything."






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