Advice To Students From Teachers Quotes

Paying more attention to the needs of students becomes way more important than any other investment.

Life is a teacher. We are the student.

The third duty of a teacher is that he should not withhold from his students any advice. After he finishes the outward sciences, he should teach them the inward sciences. He should tell them that the object of education is to gain nearness of God, not power or richness and that God created ambition as a means of perpetuating knowledge which is essential for these sciences.

Once you’re out of the classroom, you might vow never to open another book, after being force-fed their contents for so many years. But know this: Books are the most worthy companions to take with you on this bitter-sweet journey known as life.

The sutras liken reincarnation to the relationship between teachers and students. A singing teacher teaches students how to sing. His students learn techniques and benefit from direct experiential advice from their teacher. But the teacher doesn't remove a song from his throat and insert it into a student's mouth. Similarly, reincarnation is a continuity of everything we have learnt, like lighting one candle from another, or a face and its reflection in a mirror.

Critical Thinking: Why Is It So Hard to Teach? By Daniel T. Willingham SUMMER 2007 AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS pp. 8-1 Can critical thinking actually be taught? Decades of cognitive research point to a disappointing answer: not really. People who have sought to teach critical thinking have assumed that it is a skill, like riding a bicycle, and that, like other skills, once you learn it, you can apply it in any situation. Research from cognitive science shows that thinking is not that sort of skill. The processes of thinking are intertwined with the content of thought (that is, domain knowledge). Thus, if you remind a student to “look at an issue from multiple perspectives” often enough, he will learn that he ought to do so, but if he doesn’t know much about an issue, he can’t think about it from multiple perspectives. You can teach students maxims about how they ought to think, but without background knowledge and practice, they probably will not be able to implement the advice they memorize.

Perhaps most important, they both require revision. And revision usually means collaboration. Whenever I talk to students, one of the key points I try to make is that their teachers aren’t crazy or cruel to make them edit and revise their papers. Author Jonathan Rogers gave me that advice on things to talk about at school visits. Not only do the kids need to learn revision, they need to hear from someone else that their teachers are right. The thing the Resistance doesn’t want you to know is that revision is the fun part. My brother, an author and playwright, is also a formidable editor. He understands story as well as anyone I know, and he delights in revision.

Unlike Kate, by then I’d had a job. In fact, I’d had sixteen jobs, not including the years I worked as a babysitter before I could legally be anyone’s employee. They were janitor’s assistant (humiliatingly, at my high school), fast-food restaurant worker, laborer at a wildlife refuge, administrative assistant to a Realtor, English as a Second Language tutor, lemonade cart attendant, small town newspaper reporter, canvasser for a lefty nonprofit, waitress at a Japanese restaurant, volunteer coordinator for a reproductive rights organization, berry picker on a farm, waitress at a vegetarian restaurant, “coffee girl” at an accounting firm, student-faculty conflict mediator, teacher’s assistant for a women’s studies class, and office temp at a half a dozen places that by and large did not resemble offices and did not engage me in work that struck me as remotely “officey,” but rather involved things such as standing on a concrete floor wearing a hairnet, a paper mask and gown, goggles, and plastic gloves and—with a pair of tweezers—placing two pipe cleaners into a sterile box that came to me down a slow conveyor belt for eight excruciating hours a day.

There’s a big difference, in other words, between having a mentor guide our practice and having a mentor guide our journey. OUR TYPICAL PARADIGM FOR mentorship is that of a young, enterprising worker sitting across from an elderly executive at an oak desk, engaging in Q& A about how to succeed at specific challenges. On the other hand, a smartcut-savvy mentee approaches things a bit differently. She develops personal relationships with her mentors, asks their advice on other aspects of life, not just the formal challenge at hand. And she cares about her mentors’ lives too. Business owner Charlie Kim, founder of Next Jump and one of my own mentors, calls this vulnerability. It’s the key, he says, to developing a deep and organic relationship that leads to journey-focused mentorship and not just a focus on practice. Both the teacher and the student must be able to open up about their fears, and that builds trust, which in turn accelerates learning. That trust opens us up to actually heeding the difficult advice we might otherwise ignore. “It drives you to do more,” Kim says. The best mentors help students to realize that the things that really matter are not the big and obvious. The more vulnerability is shown in the relationship, the more critical details become available for a student to pick up on, and assimilate. And, crucially, a mentor with whom we have that kind of relationship will be more likely to tell us “no” when we need it—and we’ll be more likely to listen.

Kathy’s teachers view her as a good student who always does her homework but rarely participates in class. Her close friends see her as a loyal and trustworthy person who is a lot of fun once you get to know her. The other students in school think she is shy and very quiet. None of them realize how much Kathy struggles with everyday life. When teachers call on her in class, her heart races, her face gets red and hot, and she forgets what she wants to say. Kathy believes that people think she is stupid and inadequate. She imagines that classmates and teachers talk behind her back about the silly things she says. She makes excuses not to go to social events because she is terrified she will do something awkward. Staying home while her friends are out having a good time also upsets her. “Why can’t I just act like other people?” she often thinks. Although Kathy feels isolated, she has a very common problem--social anxiety. Literally millions of people are so affected by self-consciousness that they have difficulties in social situations. For some, the anxiety occurs during very specific events, such as giving a speech or eating in public. For others, like Kathy, social anxiety is part of everyday life. Unfortunately, social anxiety is not an easily diagnosed condition. Instead, it is often viewed as the far edge of a continuum of behaviors and feelings that occur during social situations. Although you may not have as much difficulty as Kathy, shyness may still be causing you distress, affecting your relationships, or making you act in ways with which you are not happy. If this is the case, you will benefit from the advice and techniques provided in this book. The good news is that it is possible to change your thinking and behavior. However, there are no easy solutions. It takes strong motivation and time to overcome social anxiety. It might even be necessary to see a professional therapist or take medication. Eventually, becoming free of your anxiety will make the hard work well worth the effort. This book will help you understand social anxiety and the impact it can have on your life, now and in the future. You will find out how the disorder is diagnosed, you will receive information on professional guidance, and you will learn ways to cope with and manage the symptoms. Becoming an extroverted person is probably unlikely, but you can become more confident in social situations and increase your self-esteem.

Any parent would be dismayed to think that this was their child’s experience of learning, of socializing, and of herself. Maya is an introvert; she is out of her element in a noisy and overstimulating classroom where lessons are taught in large groups. Her teacher told me that she’d do much better in a school with a calm atmosphere where she could work with other kids who are “equally hardworking and attentive to detail,” and where a larger portion of the day would involve independent work. Maya needs to learn to assert herself in groups, of course, but will experiences like the one I witnessed teach her this skill? The truth is that many schools are designed for extroverts. Introverts need different kinds of instruction from extroverts, write College of William and Mary education scholars Jill Burruss and Lisa Kaenzig. And too often, “very little is made available to that learner except constant advice on becoming more social and gregarious.” We tend to forget that there’s nothing sacrosanct about learning in large group classrooms, and that we organize students this way not because it’s the best way to learn but because it’s cost-efficient, and what else would we do with our children while the grown-ups are at work? If your child prefers to work autonomously and socialize one-on-one, there’s nothing wrong with her; she just happens not to fit the prevailing model. The purpose of school should be to prepare kids for the rest of their lives, but too often what kids need to be prepared for is surviving the school day itself. The school environment can be highly unnatural, especially from the perspective of an introverted child who loves to work intensely on projects he cares about, and hang out with one or two friends at a time. In the morning, the door to the bus opens and discharges its occupants in a noisy, jostling mass. Academic classes are dominated by group discussions in which a teacher prods him to speak up. He eats lunch in the cacophonous din of the cafeteria, where he has to jockey for a place at a crowded table. Worst of all, there’s little time to think or create. The structure of the day is almost guaranteed to sap his energy rather than stimulate it. Why do we accept this one-size-fits-all situation as a given when we know perfectly well that adults don’t organize themselves this way? We often marvel at how introverted, geeky kids “blossom” into secure and happy adults. We liken it to a metamorphosis. However, maybe it’s not the children who change but their environments. As adults, they get to select the careers, spouses, and social circles that suit them. They don’t have to live in whatever culture they’re plunked into. Research from a field known as “person-environment fit” shows that people flourish when, in the words of psychologist Brian Little, they’re “engaged in occupations, roles or settings that are concordant with their personalities.” The inverse is also true: kids stop learning when they feel emotionally threatened.

Once, in an age long passed, there were two friends who went together to study religion at the feet of a master. When it was explained to them both that the essence of innermost reality is truly spontaneous awareness, they each went off separately to practice what they had been taught. One of them relaxed his mind through meditation and yoga and allowed all negative emotions to simply float away like clouds in the sky until his consciousness was clear, open, and bright. The other began to assert his ego through murder and theft. Using his skill and intelligence to organize a criminal network, he quickly set up a chain of brothels and gambling houses so that he became very rich and powerful indeed. When the tow friends met again some time later, each was surprised to see how the other had understood the teachings they had received together. Returning to the teacher for advice about who was right and who was wrong, they were told that the goal of freedom is freedom from the ego. Hearing this, the one who had spent so much time and energy boosting his ego became very angry indeed and killed the master on the spot. Consequently, in subsequent incarnations, the student who was dominated by the evil ego was born repeatedly in the form of various wild animals and fell down into the lowest of the hell-realms.

The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking (Edward B. Burger;Michael Starbird) - Your Highlight on page 17 | location 251-270 | Added on Monday, 6 April 2015 03:03:56 Understand simple things deeply The most fundamental ideas in any subject can be understood with ever-increasing depth. Professional tennis players watch the ball; mathematicians understand a nuanced notion of number; successful students continue to improve their mastery of the concepts from previous chapters and courses as they move toward the more advanced material on the horizon; successful people regularly focus on the core purpose of their profession or life. True experts continually deepen their mastery of the basics. Trumpeting understanding through a note-worthy lesson. Tony Plog is an internationally acclaimed trumpet virtuoso, composer, and teacher. A few years ago we had the opportunity to observe him conducting a master class for accomplished soloists. During the class, each student played a portion of his or her selected virtuosic piece. They played wonderfully. Tony listened politely and always started his comments, “Very good, very good. That is a challenging piece, isn’t it?” As expected, he proceeded to give the students advice about how the piece could be played more beautifully, offering suggestions about physical technique and musicality. No surprise. But then he shifted gears. He asked the students to play a very easy warm-up exercise that any beginning trumpet player might be given. They played the handful of simple notes, which sounded childish compared to the dramatically fast, high notes from the earlier, more sophisticated pieces. After they played the simple phrase, Tony, for the first time during the lesson, picked up the trumpet. He played that same phrase, but when he played it, it was not childish. It was exquisite. Each note was a rich, delightful sound. He gave the small phrase a delicate shape, revealing a flowing sense of dynamics that enabled us to hear meaning in those simple notes. The students’ attempts did not come close—the contrast was astounding. The fundamental difference between the true master and the talented students clearly occurred at a far more basic level than in the intricacies of complex pieces. Tony explained that mastering an efficient, nuanced performance of simple pieces allows one to play spectacularly difficult pieces with greater control and artistry. The lesson was simple. The master teacher suggested that the advanced students focus more of their time on practicing simple pieces intensely—learning to perform them with technical efficiency and beautiful elegance. Deep work on simple, basic ideas helps to build true virtuosity—not just in music but in everything. ==========

In the classroom, conversations carry more than the details of a subject; teachers are there to help students learn how to ask questions and be dissatisfied with east answers. More than this, conversations with a good teacher communicate that learning isn't all about the answers. It's about what the answers mean. Conversations help students build narratives - whether about gun control or the Civil War - that will allow them to learn and remember in a way that has meaning for them. Without these narratives, you can learn a new fact but not know what to do with it, how to make sense of it. In therapy, conversations explore the meanings of the relationships that animate our lives. It attends to pauses, hesitations, associations, the things that are said through silence. It commits to a kind of conversation that doesn't give "advice" but helps people discover what they have hidden from themselves so they can find their inner compass.

Every student of the history of philosophy assumes, tacitly or expressly, rightly or wrongly, that he knows what philosophy is or what a philosopher is. In attempting to transform the necessarily confused notion with which one starts one’s investigations, into a clear notion of philosophy, one is confronted sooner or later with what appears to be the most serious implication of the question “what a philosopher is,” viz., the relation of philosophy to social or political life. This relation is adumbrated by the term “Natural Law,” a term which is as indispensable as it is open to grave objections. If we follow the advice of our great medieval teachers and ask first “the philosopher” for his view, we learn from him that there are things which are “by nature just.” On the basis of Aristotle, the crucial question concerns then, not the existence of a ius naturale, but the manner of its existence: “is” it in the sense in which numbers and figures “are,” or “is” it in a different sense? The question can be reduced, to begin with, to this more common form: is the ius naturale a dictate of right reason, a set of essentially rational rules?

How I Taught My Grandmother to Read and Other Stories Sudha Murty What do you do when your grandmother asks you to teach her the alphabet? Or the President of India takes you on a train ride with him? Or a teacher gives you more marks than you deserve? These are just some of the questions you will find answered in this delightful collection of stories recounting real-life incidents from the life of Sudha Murty, teacher, social worker and bestselling writer. There is the engaging story about one of her students who frequently played truant from school, the account of how her mother’s advice to save money came in handy when she wanted to help her husband start a software company and the heart-warming tale of the promise she made—and fulfilled—to her grandfather, to ensure that her little village library would always be well-supplied with books. Funny, spirited and inspiring, each of these stories teaches a valuable lesson about the importance of doing what you believe is right and having the courage to realize your dreams.

One of my spiritual teachers once taught me to be a student to those above me, a teacher to those below me, and a fellow traveler and helpmate to those on the same level. That’s good advice for all of us.

History is like an endless waltz, it never ends, it keeps going on and on.

I know that the way he comes into a classroom, he wants the students to leave knowing math. This makes me open my mind to what he has to say and how he’s trying to say it.

It matters to students that teachers like being in their company.

To keep the place running smoothly, students’ behavior becomes more important than their understanding, acquiescence more valued than inquiry

foster a teacher’s habit of paying close attention to what students say, whether they speak through words or actions.

taking on the role not only of instructor but of trusted elder, guide, coach, leader, and perhaps sometimes friend.

There are many types of teachers out there from many traditions. Some are very ordinary and some seem to radiate spirituality from every pore. Some are nice, some are indifferent, and some may seem like sergeants in boot camp. Some stress reliance on one’s own efforts, others stress reliance on the grace of the guru. Some are very available and accessible, and some may live far away, grant few interviews, or have so many students vying for their time that you may rarely get a chance to talk with them. Some seem to embody the highest ideals of the perfected spiritual life in their every waking moment, while others may have many noticeable quirks, faults and failings. Some live by rigid moral codes, while others may push the boundaries of social conventions and mores. Some may be very old, and some may be very young. Some may require strict commitments and obedience, while others may hardly seem to care what we do at all. Some may advocate very specific practices, stating that their way is the only way or the best way, while others may draw from many traditions or be open to your doing so. Some may point out our successes, while others may dwell on our failures. Some may stress renunciation or even ordination into a monastic order, while others seem relentlessly engaged with “the world.” Some charge a bundle for their teachings, while others give theirs freely. Some like scholarship and the lingo of meditation, while others may never use or even openly despise these formal terms and conceptual frameworks. Some teachers may be more like friends or equals that just want to help us learn something they happened to be good at, while others may be all into the hierarchy, status and role of being a teacher. Some teachers will speak openly about attainments, and some may not. Some teachers are remarkably predictable in their manner and teaching style, while others swing wide in strange and unpredictable ways. Some may seem very tranquil and mild mannered, while others may seem outrageous or rambunctious. Some may seem extremely humble and unimposing, while others may seem particularly arrogant and presumptuous. Some are charismatic, while others may be distinctly lacking in social skills. Some may readily give us extensive advice, and some just listen and nod. Some seem the living embodiment of love, and others may piss us off on a regular basis. Some teachers may instantly click with us, while others just leave us cold. Some teachers may be willing to teach us, and some may not. So far as I can tell, none of these are related in any way to their meditation ability or the depths of their understanding. That is, don’t judge a meditation teacher by their cover. What is important is that their style and personality inspire us to practice well, to live the life we want to live, to find what it is we wish to find, to understand what we wish to understand. Some of us may wander for a long time before we find a good fit. Some of us will turn to books for guidance, reading and practicing without the advantages or hassles of teachers. Some of us may seem to click with a practice or teacher, try to follow it for years and yet get nowhere. Others seem to fly regardless. One of the most interesting things about reality is that we get to test it out. One way or another, we will get to see what works for us and what doesn’t, what happens when we do certain practices or follow the advice of certain teachers, as well as what happens when we don’t.

Helen, a junior high math teacher in Minnesota, spent most of the school week teaching a difficult “new math” lesson. She could tell her students were frustrated and restless by week’s end. They were becoming rowdy so she told them to put their books away. She then instructed the class to take out clean sheets of paper. She gave each of them this assignment: Write down every one of your classmates’ names on the left, and then, on the right, put down one thing you like about that student. The tense and rowdy mood subsided and the room quieted when the students went to work. Their moods lifted as they dug into the assignment. There was frequent laughter and giggling. They looked around the room, sharing quips about one another. Helen’s class was a much happier group when the bell signaled the end of the school day. She took their lists home over the weekend and spent both days off recording what was said about each student on separate sheets of paper so she could pass on all the nice things said about each person without giving away who said what. The next Monday she handed out the lists she’d made for each student. The room buzzed with excitement and laughter. “Wow. Thanks! This is the coolest!” “I didn’t think anyone even noticed me!” “Someone thinks I’m beautiful?” Helen had come up with the exercise just to settle down her class, but it ended up giving them a big boost. They grew closer as classmates and more confident as individuals. She could tell they all seemed more relaxed and joyful. About ten years later, Helen learned that one of her favorite students in that class, a charming boy named Mark, had been killed while serving in Vietnam. She received an invitation to the funeral from Mark’s parents, who included a note saying they wanted to be sure she came to their farmhouse after the services to speak with them. Helen arrived and the grieving parents took her aside. The father showed her Mark’s billfold and then from it he removed two worn pieces of lined paper that had been taped, folded, and refolded many times over the years. Helen recognized her handwriting on the paper and tears came to her eyes. Mark’s parents said he’d always carried the list of nice things written by his classmates. “Thank you so much for doing that,” his mother said. “He treasured it, as you can see.” Still teary-eyed, Helen walked into the kitchen where many of Mark’s former junior high classmates were assembled. They saw that Mark’s parents had his list from that class. One by one, they either produced their own copies from wallets and purses or they confessed to keeping theirs in an album, drawer, diary, or file at home. Helen the teacher was a “people builder.” She instinctively found ways to build up her students. Being a people builder means you consistently find ways to invest in and bring out the best in others. You give without asking for anything in return. You offer advice, speak faith into them, build their confidence, and challenge them to go higher. I’ve found that all most people need is a boost. All they need is a little push, a little encouragement, to become what God has created them to be. The fact is, none of us will reach our highest potential by ourselves. We need one another. You can be the one to tip the scales for someone else. You can be the one to stir up their seeds of greatness.

Always be a student and always be a teacher.

In 1921, Terman decided to make the study of the gifted his life work. Armed with a large grant from the Commonwealth Foundation, he put together a team of fieldworkers and sent them out into California’s elementary schools. Teachers were asked to nominate the brightest students in their classes. Those children were given an intelligence test. The students who scored in the top 10 percent were then given a second IQ test, and those who scored above 130 on that test were given a third IQ test, and from that set of results Terman selected the best and the brightest. By the time Terman was finished, he had sorted through the records of some 250,000 elementary and high school students, and identified 1,470 children whose IQs averaged over 140 and ranged as high as 200. That group of young geniuses came to be known as the “Termites,” and they were the subjects of what would become one of the most famous psychological studies in history. For the rest of his life, Terman watched over his charges like a mother hen. They were tracked and tested, measured and analyzed. Their educational attainments were noted, marriages followed, illnesses tabulated, psychological health charted, and every promotion and job change dutifully recorded. Terman wrote his recruits letters of recommendation for jobs and graduate school applications. He doled out a constant stream of advice and counsel, all the time recording his findings in thick red volumes entitled Genetic Studies of Genius.

What a child experiences between the ages of seven and ten will determine his actions as a teenager and an adult.” I thought this was crucial information for future elementary school teachers, and I found that it was not addressed in their education courses. “Killer in the Classroom” was the title of a presentation that I prepared for the future elementary school teachers. The title got their attention, and the prisoners’ stories kept them riveted for the full hour. While none of these prisoners placed blame on their teachers for turning them into criminals, all of them had advice for how a teacher could spot a troubled child in her classroom and how to reach out to him. They also pointed out some of the ways in which even well-intentioned actions could backfire. Jon related his experiences as a boy who, because his father’s job required frequent transfers, was often the new kid in school. He admitted to engaging in some juvenile mischief, but nothing requiring the harsh treatment he received. One teacher, having heard of his reputation as a troublemaker, singled him out at the start of the school year—literally, singled him out. She made him spend the semester behind a partition in the back of the room, separated from the rest of the students. Over time, that led to his rejection of the teacher, of his schoolwork, of school. That led to the streets, to drugs, to violence. Jon connected the dots by concluding, “Stick me behind a partition, and I grow up and kill someone.” My end-of-semester surveys always showed this presentation to be the most impactful moment of the semester. It was a lesson that I knew my students would remember when they started working with little Larrys, Dustins, and Patricks. And I

Let us not be deceived by optimism and good intentions. Despite their exceptional merit, and the zeal and energy they display in the classroom, such teachers suffer from a disease of the will—although psychologists may not see it this way. Their sluggishness and neglect may not justify a diagnosis of abulia or loss of will power, but their students and friends may nevertheless consider them abnormal and suggest some adequate form of spiritual therapy, with all due respect to their fine intellectual abilities.