Quotes About Learning

 

Here are some quotes about learning that you can use in

 your classroom for decor or as journal prompts.

"The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you." BB King

"I am still learning." Michaelangelo aged 87

"Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today." Malcolm X

"Education is what people do to you. Learning is what you do for yourself."Joichi Ito

"If you're not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you're determined to learn, no one can stop you."

"The purpose of an education is to replace an empty mind with an open one." Malcolm S. Forbes

"Education isn't the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire." W.B. Yeats

"Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know." Daniel J. Borstin

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." Nelson Mandela

One child, one pen, one teacher, and one book can change the world." Malala Yousafzai  

"Do not be embarrassed by your failures. Learn from them and start again." Richard Branson

"The truth is, you don't learn from success. You learn from failure." George Clooney

"There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience and that is not learning from experience." Archibald MacLeish

                                                                                                       

"The most important attitude that can be formed is that of desire to go on learning." Walt Disney

Books That Help Make You A Better Teacher: The SSR Handbook by Janice L. Pilgreen

 

BLURB:

It comes as no surprise that the students who read often are the students who read well. How, then, can we get the rest of our students reading? Is it enough to set aside in-class time for sustained silent reading? Or should we set up a more structured program-one that ensures all of our students are engaged in their reading and that they do so on a regular basis for the pleasure of it?

Janice Pilgreen knows from hard-won experience that it takes a lot of time, effort, and know-how to put an effective sustained silent reading program into practice. In The SSR Handbook, she's done most of the work for you, not only providing an overview of the underlying research, but also reviewing eight essential factors that ensure a program's success. Pilgreen explicitly identifies these factors, then explains in detail how to incorporate them into your own program. The book also features lots of resources to help you implement your program, including support organizations, book clubs, classroom magazine subscription titles/addresses, favorite young adult series books within various genres, comic book titles, lower-level reading books for adolescents, and publishing company names, addresses, and phone numbers. Best of all, there are reproducible student and parent inventories, reading records, and other forms to assist you with the process.

Readers will come away from this book with an understanding of what SSR is, why it's important, and how to implement it in their own schools and classrooms. Just as important, they will be motivated and energized enough to want to develop new programs or modify existing programs right away.

Turning students onto reading is one of the most important jobs we do as English teachers. I really believe this. Being a good reader is valuable for so many reasons, and I address those reasons here. This book by Janice Pilgreen helped me really think through my Sustained Silent Reading program and how I wanted to implement it into my classroom. It gives the eight factors for success in an SSR program: access to books, appeal, conducive environment, reading encouragement, staff training, non-accountability, follow-up activities, and daily reading time. I honestly don't know what I would have done without it. There were other teachers in my building trying something similiar but who didn't have the success I did because they weren't following the guidance I got from this book. If you've been thinking about implementing SSR in your own classroom, or if you're already doing it but feel like it isn't working like you want it to, I'd highly recommend The SSR Handbook. 

When you know better, do better.

Below you will find a link to a BuzzFeed article. In it, teachers talk about lessons they learned while teaching that made them change some of the rules/policies in their classrooms. I found them so important that I decided to share with you. 

 Teacher Experiences With Students That Compelled Them To Change Their Teaching Policies 

‘I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.’ –Albert Einstein.

Emergency Lesson Plans--You'll Need Them!!

 

Inevitably it's going to happen. You'll get sick in the middle of the night...or your kids will. Your car won't crank. You have a flat on the way to work. Something will happen at the last minute to prevent you from getting to work on time. What are you going to do? What are your students going to do? 

This sort of thing would happen at my school with annoying frequency. And what would the admin do? They'd ask the other teachers to come up with some lesson plans to get through the day. Ugh! Nothing I enjoyed more than using my planning period to get something crappy thrown together for a fellow teacher. 

Please. Please. Get some emergency lesson plans for your classroom, so that if this does happen, you can just say, "My emergency plans are located...blah...blah...blah." An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure! Your fellow teachers, admin, and students will thank you.

You can find emergency sub plans on Tpt. In fact, I have some myself. They are linked below. But it's also pretty easy to throw together your own. Before I made some, I would just pick some stories from the literature book that I never taught. Then I would build a little lesson around them. 

Read the story aloud. 

Answer the questions at the end. 

Go over them. 

Write a response. 

It's really not that hard to create some emergency lesson plans...or buy them. And you'll be glad to have one less thing to worry about when you have an actual emergency. 

MY EMERGENCY LESSON PLANS ON TEACHERS PAY TEACHERS

The Boarded Window

The Man From Snowy River

Bertie's Christmas Eve

The Song of Wandering Aengus

Mending Wall

The Listeners

Casey at the Bat

The Cremation of Sam McGee

MY MOVIE BASED SUB PLANS FOR EXTENDED ABSENCE

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Emma

Shrek

Books That Help Make You a Better Teacher: How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster

 

BLURB:

 A thoroughly revised and updated edition of Thomas C. Foster’s classic guide—a lively and entertaining introduction to literature and literary basics, including symbols, themes and contexts, that shows you how to make your everyday reading experience more rewarding and enjoyable.

While many books can be enjoyed for their basic stories, there are often deeper literary meanings interwoven in these texts. How to Read Literature Like a Professor helps us to discover those hidden truths by looking at literature with the eyes—and the literary codes-of the ultimate professional reader, the college professor.

What does it mean when a literary hero is traveling along a dusty road? When he hands a drink to his companion? When he’s drenched in a sudden rain shower?

Ranging from major themes to literary models, narrative devices and form, Thomas C. Foster provides us with a broad overview of literature—a world where a road leads to a quest, a shared meal may signify a communion, and rain, whether cleansing or destructive, is never just a shower-and shows us how to make our reading experience more enriching, satisfying, and fun.

This revised edition includes new chapters, a new preface and epilogue, and incorporates updated teaching points that Foster has developed over the past decade.

If you're a high school English language arts teacher and you haven't read this book, GET IT NOW! Seriously, this book is easy to read and a great resource for helping you and your students understand literary analysis.  It's full of information given in a humorous, tongue-in-cheek style that is as entertaining as it is useful. Chapters include the following:

1. "Every Trip is a Quest (Except When It's Not")

2. "When in Doubt, It's From Shakespeare"

3. "...or the Bible"

4. "It's Greek to Me"

5. "If She Comes Up, It's Baptism"

6. "It's More than Just Rain or Snow"

7.  "Yes, She's a Christ Figure, Too"

8. "It's All About Sex."

9. "Except Sex"

10. "Geography Matters"

And that's just a sampling. There's sooo much more. 

Seriously, so much good stuff. And since it is such an easy read, I used to require that my upper level honors students (11, 12) read this book as part of their summer reading assignments. With my lower grade honors classes (9, 10), I only selected a single chapter or two to apply to a particular novel we were reading. It added so much depth to our classroom discussions, and my kids actually "got" it. 

Every ELA teacher needs this book on his/her shelf. There's even a version for middle school students. You can find it here.

However you use this, even if its just for your own information and help in teaching better, it's well worth the price.