Bored Teachers Quotes

If you end up with a boring miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on television telling you how to do your shit, then you deserve it.

I picked up one of the books and flipped through it. Don't get me wrong, I like reading. But some books should come with warning labels: Caution: contains characters and plots guaranteed to induce sleepiness. Do not attempt to operate heavy machinery after ingesting more than one chapter. Has been known to cause blindness, seizures and a terminal loathing of literature. Should only be taken under the supervision of a highly trained English teacher. Preferably one who grades on the curve.

I have noticed that teachers get exciting confused with boring a lot.

You can’t learn to write in college. It’s a very bad place for writers because the teachers always think they know more than you do—and they don’t. They have prejudices. They may like Henry James, but what if you don’t want to write like Henry James? They may like John Irving, for instance, who’s the bore of all time. A lot of the people whose work they’ve taught in the schools for the last thirty years, I can’t understand why people read them and why they are taught. The library, on the other hand, has no biases. The information is all there for you to interpret. You don’t have someone telling you what to think. You discover it for yourself.

You are the most boring teacher ever." He grinned and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, just as a knock sounded at the door. "It all depends on what you me to teach you.

Do you know that moment when you paint a landscape as a child and, when you’re maybe under seven or something, the sky is just a blue stripe across the top of the paper? And then there’s that somewhat disappointing moment when the teacher tells you that the sky actually comes down in amongst all the branches. And it’s like life changes at that moment and becomes much more complicated and a little bit more boring, as it’s rather tedious to fill in the branches…

...Generally people don't recomend this type of book at all. It is far too interesting. Perhaps you have had other books recomended to you. Perhaps, even, you have been given books by friends, parents, teachers, then told that these books are the type you have to read. Those books are invariably described as "important"- which in my experience, pretty much means that they're boring. (words like meaningful and thoughtful are other good clues.)

It came to him that he didn't like holidays. . . . They bore down on you. Each one always ended up feeling like an exam . . .

Nawat grinned. “I was helping to steal soldiers who couldn't keep up.” “What do you do with them?” she asked, curious. “I haven't heard of bodies being found.” “Nor will you,” Nawat informed her, sitting on a corner of the worktable. “They were still alive when we gave them to my warriors at the edge of the jungle.” He picked up Aly's hand and laced his fingers with hers. “My warriors will be able to say they last saw the missing soldiers alive, when the troops went on a visit to the jungle.” Aly walked her free fingers over their entwined hands. “But why would Crown soldiers visit the jungle?” “They didn't think they would at first,” Nawat admitted. “So my warriors show them the beauties of the deep jungle. They take away all the things the soldiers have of the civilized world, such as clothes and weapons and armor, so the soldiers will appreciate the jungle with their entire bodies. But my warriors have seen jungle before, so they get bored and leave. The soldiers stay longer.” “Like the tax collectors,” Aly whispered, awed by the beauty of what he described. “Take away all they have and leave them to survive the jungle. If you're questioned under truthspell, you can say they were alive when you left them. And the only way they could survive naked out there . . .” Nawat was shaking his head. Aly nodded. “I take it you don't leave them near any trails.” “They are there to appreciate the jungle that has been untouched by humans,” Nawat told her, a teacher to a student who did not quite understand. Aly sighed. “I am limp with envy,” she told him. “Simply limp.

We're all on our own, aren't we? That's what it boils down to. We come into this world on our own- in Hawaii, as I did, or New York, or China, or Africa or Montana- and we leave it in the same way, on our own, wherever we happen to be at the time- in a plane, in our beds, in a car, in a space shuttle, or in a field of flowers. And between those times, we try to connect along the way with others who are also on their own. If we're lucky, we have a mother who reads to us. We have a teacher or two along the way who make us feel special. We have dogs who do the stupid dog tricks we teach them and who lie on our bed when we're not looking, because it smells like us, and so we pretend not to notice the paw prints on the bedspread. We have friends who lend us their favorite books. Maybe we have children, and grandchildren, and funny mailmen and eccentric great-aunts, and uncles who can pull pennies out of their ears. All of them teach us stuff. They teach us about combustion engines and the major products of Bolivia, and what poems are not boring, and how to be kind to each other, and how to laugh, and when the vigil is in our hands, and when we have to make the best of things even though it's hard sometimes. Looking back together, telling our stories to one another, we learn how to be on our own.

We're freaks, the two of us, Franny and I. I'm a twenty-five-year-old freak and she's a twenty-one-year-old freak, and both those bastards are responsible. I swear to you, I could murder them both without batting an eyelash. The great teachers. The great emancipators. My God. I can't even sit down to lunch with a man any more and hold up my end of a decent conversation. I either get so bored or so goddamn preachy that if the son of a bitch had any sense, he'd break his chair over my head

I think a lot of people quit pursuing creative lives because they’re scared of the word interesting. My favorite meditation teacher, Pema Chödrön, once said that the biggest problem she sees with people’s meditation practice is that they quit just when things are starting to get interesting. Which is to say, they quit as soon as things aren’t easy anymore, as soon as it gets painful, or boring, or agitating. They quit as soon as they see something in their minds that scares them or hurts them. So they miss the good part, the wild part, the transformative part—the part when you push past the difficulty and enter into some raw new unexplored universe within yourself. And maybe it’s like that with every important aspect of your life. Whatever it is you are pursuing, whatever it is you are seeking, whatever it is you are creating, be careful not to quit too soon. As my friend Pastor Rob Bell warns: “Don’t rush through the experiences and circumstances that have the most capacity to transform you.” Don’t let go of your courage the moment things stop being easy or rewarding. Because that moment? That’s the moment when interesting begins.

He only knows great teachers can bore into someone else's mind like this -- only they have this kind of power. Maybe that's why teachers are paid so little: what they earn has more power than money.

I returned from the village. The house seemed unbearably dull. But I bore it. "There is no escape from loneliness and separation...." I told myself often. "Wife, child, brothers, parents, friends.... We come together only to go apart again. It is one continuous movement. They move away from us as we move away from them. The law of life can't be avoided. The law comes into operation the moment we detach ourselves from our mother's womb. All struggle and misery in life is due to our attempt to arrest this law or get away from it or in allowing ourselves to be hurt by it. The fact must be recognized. A profound unmitigated loneliness is the only truth of life. All else is false. My mother got away from her parents, my sisters from our house, I and my brother away from each other, my wife was torn away from me, my daughter is going away with my mother, my father has gone away from his father, my earliest friends - where are they? They scatter apart like the droplets of a waterspray. The law of life. No sense in battling against it...." Thus I reconciled myself to this separation with less struggle than before.

Your perception is riveting, Amal," he says in a bored and sarcastic tone, dropping the note down on my desk. "It's comforting to know that there are people in my class who have the maturity and intelligence to make derogatory comments about other people's external appearances." Now what am I supposed to say to that? "What do you have to say for yourself?" Friggin' mind reader.

Our history teacher had the most boring voice in the world and no teaching skils to speak of. Every single class, he read aloud in a monotonous tone. Yeah, fascinating. Double history on a Monday morning was a punishment from God.

There was no room for dust devils in the laws of physics, as least in the rigid form in which they were usually taught. There is a kind of unspoken collusion going on in mainstream science education: you get your competent but bored, insecure and hence stodgy teacher talking to an audience divided between engineering students, who are going to be responsible for making bridges that won’t fall down or airplanes that won’t suddenly plunge vertically into the ground at six hundred miles an hour, and who by definition get sweaty palms and vindictive attitudes when their teacher suddenly veers off track and begins raving about wild and completely nonintuitive phenomena; and physics students, who derive much of their self-esteem from knowing that they are smarter and morally purer than the engineering students, and who by definition don’t want to hear about anything that makes no fucking sense. This collusion results in the professor saying: (something along the lines of) dust is heavier than air, therefore it falls until it hits the ground. That’s all there is to know about dust. The engineers love it because they like their issues dead and crucified like butterflies under glass. The physicists love it because they want to think they understand everything. No one asks difficult questions. And outside the windows, the dust devils continue to gambol across the campus.

It’s stupid. The teachers don’t really care if you learn anything, just as long as you fill in bubbles on tests. If you get something wrong, they don’t go over it and help you. There might be a lecture, but half of the time we’re reading out of those boring textbooks in class. Half of the stuff doesn’t even matter. Will I ever be held at gunpoint and asked the specific date Eisenhower came into office? Probably not. Better they teach me how to look it up on Google.

You can't learn to write in college. It's a very bad place for writers because the teachers always think they know more than you do—and they don't. They have prejudices. They may like Henry James, but what if you don't want to write like Henry James? They may like John Irving, for instance, who's the bore of all time. A lot of the people whose work they've taught in the schools for the last thirty years, I can't understand why people read them and why they are taught. The library, on the other hand, has no biases. The information is all there for you to interpret. You don't have someone telling you what to think. You discover it for yourself.

Free human dialogue, wandering wherever the agility of the mind allows, lies at the heart of education. If teachers do not have the time, the incentive, or the wit to produce that; if students are too demoralized, bored, or distracted to muster the attention their teachers need of them, then THAT is the educational problem which has to be solved. . . That problem . . . is metaphysical in nature, not technical

When history textbooks leave out the Arawaks, they offend Native Americans. When they omit the possibility of African and Phoenician precursors to Columbus, they offend African Americans. When they glamorize explorers such as de Soto just because they were white, our histories offend all people of color. When they leave out Las Casas, they omit an interesting idealist with whom we all might identify. When they glorify Columbus, our textbooks prod us toward identifying with the oppressor. When textbook authors omit the causes and process of European world domination, they offer us a history whose purpose must be to keep us unaware of the important questions. Perhaps worst of all, when textbooks paint simplistic portraits of a pious, heroic Columbus, they provide feel-good history that bores everyone.

My teacher taught me that the way for me to help others was not to tell them their duty, but myself to learn of Him who bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. As

Your Writing Teacher ‏@WritingChief If u don't get ur protagonist dirty, ur readers will get bored. Readers are wild, cliff-jumping, mud-wrestling savages. Become their leader. (anonymous on Twitter)

10 ways to raise a wild child. Not everyone wants to raise wild, free thinking children. But for those of you who do, here's my tips: 1. Create safe space for them to be outside for a least an hour a day. Preferable barefoot & muddy. 2. Provide them with toys made of natural materials. Silks, wood, wool, etc...Toys that encourage them to use their imagination. If you're looking for ideas, Google: 'Waldorf Toys'. Avoid noisy plastic toys. Yea, maybe they'll learn their alphabet from the talking toys, but at the expense of their own unique thoughts. Plastic toys that talk and iPads in cribs should be illegal. Seriously! 3. Limit screen time. If you think you can manage video game time and your kids will be the rare ones that don't get addicted, then go for it. I'm not that good so we just avoid them completely. There's no cable in our house and no video games. The result is that my kids like being outside cause it's boring inside...hah! Best plan ever! No kid is going to remember that great day of video games or TV. Send them outside! 4. Feed them foods that support life. Fluoride free water, GMO free organic foods, snacks free of harsh preservatives and refined sugars. Good oils that support healthy brain development. Eat to live! 5. Don't helicopter parent. Stay connected and tuned into their needs and safety, but don't hover. Kids like adults need space to roam and explore without the constant voice of an adult telling them what to do. Give them freedom! 6. Read to them. Kids don't do what they are told, they do what they see. If you're on your phone all the time, they will likely be doing the same thing some day. If you're reading, writing and creating your art (painting, cooking...whatever your art is) they will likely want to join you. It's like Emilie Buchwald said, "Children become readers in the laps of their parents (or guardians)." - it's so true! 7. Let them speak their truth. Don't assume that because they are young that you know more than them. They were born into a different time than you. Give them room to respectfully speak their mind and not feel like you're going to attack them. You'll be surprised what you might learn. 8. Freedom to learn. I realize that not everyone can homeschool, but damn, if you can, do it! Our current schools system is far from the best ever. Our kids deserve better. We simply can't expect our children to all learn the same things in the same way. Not every kid is the same. The current system does not support the unique gifts of our children. How can they with so many kids in one classroom. It's no fault of the teachers, they are doing the best they can. Too many kids and not enough parent involvement. If you send your kids to school and expect they are getting all they need, you are sadly mistaken. Don't let the public school system raise your kids, it's not their job, it's yours! 9. Skip the fear based parenting tactics. It may work short term. But the long term results will be devastating to the child's ability to be open and truthful with you. Children need guidance, but scaring them into listening is just lazy. Find new ways to get through to your kids. Be creative! 10. There's no perfect way to be a parent, but there's a million ways to be a good one. Just because every other parent is doing it, doesn't mean it's right for you and your child. Don't let other people's opinions and judgments influence how you're going to treat your kid. Be brave enough to question everything until you find what works for you. Don't be lazy! Fight your urge to be passive about the things that matter. Don't give up on your kid. This is the most important work you'll ever do. Give it everything you have.

Great teachers are wonderful. They change lives. We need them. The problem is that most schools don’t like great teachers. They’re organized to stamp them out, bore them, bureaucratize them, and make them average. Why

If she believes that tigers live, then does she believe that Indians are hunted and dying? If she believes in fish the size of men, does she believe in men who string up others like linefuls of catch? Easier to avoid that history, unwritten as it is except in the soughing of dry grass, in the marks of lost trails, in the rumors from the mouths of bored men and mean girls, in the cracked patterns of buffalo bone. Easier by far to read the history that Teacher Leigh teaches, those names and dates orderly as bricks, stacked to build a civilization

Forget I said that.” Alexandra would try, but she doubted she would succeed. “Tell me about your schooling,” he said. “My schooling?” “Boring lessons, grim schoolrooms. If by chance you had any dour, dried-up, snaggletoothed headmistresses, I’d love to hear about them right now. In detail.” “My least favorite teacher wasn’t dried up or ugly at all. She was quite pretty, as a matter of fact, but she would spank us for misbehaving.” “Really,” he said, groaning weakly. “A smart thwack of the ruler, straight on the backside.” “On second thought, let’s not talk.

Hushlanders, I’d like to take this opportunity to commend you for reading this book. I realize the difficulty you must have gone through to obtain it – after all, no Librarian is likely to recommend it, considering the secrets it exposes about their kind. Actually, my experience has been that people generally don’t recommend this kind of book at all. It is far too interesting. Perhaps you have had other kinds of books recommended to you. Perhaps, even, you have been given books by friends, parents, or teachers, then told that these books are the type you “have to read.” Those books are invariably described as “important” – which, in my experience, pretty much means that they’re boring. (Words like meaningful and thoughtful are other good clues.) If there is a boy in these kinds of books, he will not go on an adventure to fight against Librarians, paper monsters, and one-eyed Dark Oculators. In fact, the lad will not go on an adventure or fight against anything at all. Instead, his dog will die. Or, in some cases, his mother will die. If it’s a really meaningful book, both his dog and his mother will die. (Apparently, most writers have something against dogs and mothers.)

Consider now the primal scene of education in the modern elementary school. Let us assume that a teacher wishes to inform a class of some 20 pupils about the structure of atoms, and that she plans to base the day's instruction on an analogy with the solar system. She knows that the instruction will be effective only to the extent that all the students in the class already know about the solar system. A good teacher would probably try to find out. 'Now, class, how many of you know about the solar system?' Fifteen hands go up. Five stay down. What is a teacher to do in this typical circumstance in the contemporary American school? "If he or she pauses to explain the solar system, a class period is lost, and 15 of the 20 students are bored and deprived of knowledge for that day. If the teacher plunges ahead with atomic structure, the hapless five—they are most likely to be poor or minority students—are bored, humiliated and deprived, because they cannot comprehend the teacher's explanation.

Disasterology The Badger is the thirteenth astrological sign. My sign. The one the other signs evicted: unanimously. So what? ! Think I want to read about my future in the newspaper next to the comics? My third grade teacher told me I had no future. I run through snow and turn around just to make sure I’ve got a past. My life’s a chandelier dropped from an airplane. I graduated first in my class from alibi school. There ought to be a healthy family cage at the zoo, or an open field, where I can lose my mother as many times as I need. When I get bored, I call the cops, tell them there’s a pervert peeking in my window! then I slip on a flimsy nightgown, go outside, press my face against the glass and wait… This makes me proud to be an American where drunk drivers ought to wear necklaces made from the spines of children they’ve run over. I remember my face being invented through a windshield. All the wounds stitched with horsehair So the scars galloped across my forehead. I remember the hymns cherubs sang in my bloodstream. The way even my shadow ached when the chubby infants stopped. I remember wishing I could be boiled like water and made pure again. Desire so real it could be outlined in chalk. My eyes were the color of palm trees in a hurricane. I’d wake up and my id would start the day without me. Somewhere a junkie fixes the hole in his arm and a racing car zips around my halo. A good God is hard to find. Each morning I look in the mirror and say promise me something don’t do the things I’ve done.

The only acceptable hobby, throughout all stages of life, is cookery. As a child: adorable baked items. Twenties: much appreciated spag bol and fry-ups. Thirties and forties: lovely stuff with butternut squash and chorizo from the Guardian food section. Fifties and sixties: beef wellington from the Sunday Telegraph magazine. Seventies and eighties: back to the adorable baked items. Perfect. The only teeny tiny downside of this hobby is that I HATE COOKING. Don't get me wrong; I absolutely adore the eating of the food. It's just the awful boring, frightening putting together of it that makes me want to shove my own fists in my mouth. It's a lovely idea: follow the recipe and you'll end up with something exactly like the pretty picture in the book, only even more delicious. But the reality's rather different. Within fifteen minutes of embarking on a dish I generally find myself in tears in the middle of what appears to be a bombsite, looking like a mentally unstable art teacher in a butter-splattered apron, wondering a) just how I am supposed to get hold of a thimble and a half of FairTrade hazelnut oil (why is there always the one impossible-to-find recipe ingredient? Sesame paste, anyone?) and b) just how I managed to get flour through two closed doors onto the living-room curtains, when I don't recall having used any flour and oh-this-is-terrible-let's-just-go-out-and-get-a-Wagamama's-and-to-hell-with-the-cost, dammit.

Our English teacher, Dr. Boring (I’m not kidding; that’s his real name),

The problem is that most schools don’t like great teachers. They’re organized to stamp them out, bore them, bureaucratize them, and make them average.

You are your best teacher

Most of my teachers let me do independent studies, because they know I get bored in class and, frankly, I think they’re a little scared that I know more than they do and they don’t want to have to admit it.

He had never got so much back for himself from any pupil as he did from Miss Kronborg. From the first she had stimulated him; something in her personality invariably affected him. Now that he was feeling his way toward her voice, he found her more interesting than ever before. She lifted the tedium of the winter for him, gave him curious fancies and reveries. Musically, she was sympathetic to him. Why this was true, he never asked himself. He had learned that one must take where and when one can the mysterious mental irritant that rouses one's imagination; that it is not to be had by order. She often wearied him, but she never bored him.

When someone recommends a book to you, you know two things; that it is a good book and you have a good friend. If you listen to everybody, you will be nobody. Judge a man by what he tried, not by what he accomplished. People hate what they know but fear what they don't. A curious mind is never bored. Parents, teachers, and politicians should not be judged by their popularity. People believe in everything except the reality.

In graduate school, he'd had a teacher who had told him that the best actors are the most boring people. A string sense of self was detrimental, because an actor had to let the self disappear; he had to let himself be subsumed by a character. "If you want to be a personality, be a pop star," his teacher had said.

Like MacMillan and the clique of teachers and the coaches who all went to the same church and barbecued at one another's houses, much of the country's small-bore civil servants were itching to do some repressing of their own. Millions of Dick Cheney wannabes swelling the ranks, enjoying their little authoritarian fiefdoms.

I returned from the village. The house seemed unbearably dull. But I bore it. "There is no escape from loneliness and separation...." I told myself often. "Wife, child, brothers, parents, friends.... We come together only to go apart again. It is one continuous movement. They move away from us as we move away from them. The law of life can't be avoided. The law comes into operation the moment we detach ourselves from our mother's womb. All struggle and misery in life is due to our attempt to arrest this law or get away from it or in allowing ourselves to be hurt by it. The fact must be recognized. A profound unmitigated loneliness is the only truth of life. All else is false.

As youngest among us, but small no more, Your life can be trying, for we have the chore Of becoming your teachers, a terrible bore. “We’ve got experience! Take it from me!” “We’ve done this all before, you see. We know the ropes, we know the same.” Since time immemorial, always the same. One’s own shortcomings are nothing but fluff, But everyone else’s are heavier stuff:

I can’t read Tess of the d’Urbervilles!” I cried. “It’s too hard!” “YOU MEAN IT’S HARD TO MAKE YOURSELF READ IT, YOU MEAN IT’S HARD TO MAKE YOURSELF PAY ATTENTION,” he said. “BUT IT’S NOT TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES THAT’S HARD. THOMAS HARDY MAY BORE YOU BUT HE’S VERY EASY TO UNDERSTAND—HE’S OBVIOUS, HE TELLS YOU EVERYTHING YOU HAVE TO KNOW.” “He tells me more than I want to know!” I cried. “YOUR BOREDOM IS YOUR PROBLEM,” said Owen Meany. “IT’S YOUR LACK OF IMAGINATION THAT BORES YOU. HARDY HAS THE WORLD FIGURED OUT. TESS IS DOOMED. FATE HAS IT IN FOR HER. SHE’S A VICTIM; IF YOU’RE A VICTIM, THE WORLD WILL USE YOU. WHY SHOULD SOMEONE WHO’S GOT SUCH A WORKED-OUT WAY OF SEEING THE WORLD BORE YOU? WHY SHOULDN’T YOU BE INTERESTED IN SOMEONE WHO’S WORKED OUT A WAY TO SEE THE WORLD? THAT’S WHAT MAKES WRITERS INTERESTING! MAYBE YOU SHOULD BE AN ENGLISH MAJOR. AT LEAST, YOU GET TO READ STUFF THAT’S WRITTEN BY PEOPLE WHO CAN WRITE! YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING TO BE AN ENGLISH MAJOR, YOU DON’T NEED ANY SPECIAL TALENT, YOU JUST HAVE TO PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT SOMEONE WANTS YOU TO SEE—TO WHAT MAKES SOMEONE ANGRIEST, OR THE MOST EXCITED IN SOME OTHER WAY. IT’S SO EASY; I THINK THAT’S WHY THERE ARE SO MANY ENGLISH MAJORS.” “It’s not easy for me!” I cried. “I hate reading this book!” “DO YOU HATE TO READ MOST BOOKS?” Owen asked me. “Yes!” I said. “DO YOU SEE THAT THE PROBLEM IS NOT TESS?” he asked me. “Yes,” I admitted. “NOW WE’RE GETTING SOMEWHERE,” said Owen Meany—my friend, my teacher. Standing on the sidewalk with Mrs.

I was never a child; I never had a childhood. I cannot count among my memories warm, golden days of childish intoxication, long joyous hours of innocence, or the thrill of discovering the universe anew each day. I learned of such things later on in life from books. Now I guess at their presence in the children I see. I was more than twenty when I first experienced something similar in my self, in chance moments of abandonment, when I was at peace with the world. Childhood is love; childhood is gaiety; childhood knows no cares. But I always remember myself, in the years that have gone by, as lonely, sad, and thoughtful. Ever since I was a little boy I have felt tremendously alone―and "peculiar". I don't know why. It may have been because my family was poor or because I was not born the way other children are born; I cannot tell. I remember only that when I was six or seven years old a young aunt of mind called me vecchio―"old man," and the nickname was adopted by all my family. Most of the time I wore a long, frowning face. I talked very little, even with other children; compliments bored me; baby-talk angered me. Instead of the noisy play of the companions of my boyhood I preferred the solitude of the most secluded corners of our dark, cramped, poverty-stricken home. I was, in short, what ladies in hats and fur coats call a "bashful" or a "stubborn" child; and what our women with bare heads and shawls, with more directness, call a rospo―a "toad." They were right. I must have been, and I was, utterly unattractive to everybody. I remember, too, that I was well aware of the antipathy I aroused. It made me more "bashful," more "stubborn," more of a "toad" than ever. I did not care to join in the games played by other boys, but preferred to stand apart, watching them with jealous eyes, judging them, hating them. It wasn't envy I felt at such times: it was contempt; it was scorn. My warfare with men had begun even then and even there. I avoided people, and they neglected me. I did not love them, and they hated me. At play in the parks some of the boys would chase me; others would laugh at me and call me names. At school they pulled my curls or told the teachers tales about me. Even on my grandfather's farm in the country peasant brats threw stones at me without provocation, as if they felt instinctively that I belonged to some other breed.

Someday, if we won, if humanity survived, we'd be in the history books. Me and Jake and Rachel and Cassie and Tobias and Ax. They'd be household names, like generals from World War II or the Civil War. Patton and Eisenhower, Ulysses Grant and Robert E. Lee. Kids would study us in school. Bored, probably. And then the teacher would tell the story of Marco. I'd be a part of history. What I was about to do. Some kid would laugh. Some kid would say, "Cold, man. That was really cold." I had to do it, kid. It was a war. It's the whole point, you stupid, smug, smirking little jerk! Don't you get it? It was the whole point. We hurt the innocent in order to stop the evil. Innocent Hork-Bajir. Innocent Taxxons. Innocent human-Controllers. How else to stop the Yeerks? How else to win? No choice, you punk. We did what we had to do. "Cold, man. The Marco dude? He was just cold.

Say you've just read Faulkner's 'Barn Burning'. Like the son in the story, you've sensed the faults in your father's character. Thinking about them makes you uncomfortable, left alone you'd probably close the book and move on to other thoughts. But instead you are taken in hand by a tall, brooding man with a distinguished limp who involves you and a roomful of other boys in the consideration of what it means to be a son. The loyalty that is your duty and your worth and your problem. The goodness of loyalty and its difficulties and snares, how loyalty might also become betrayal - of the self and the world outside the circle of blood. You've never had this conversation before, not with anyone. And even as its happening you understand that just as your father's troubles with the world - emotional frailty, self-doubt, incomplete honesty - will not lead him to set it on fire, your own loyalty will never be the stuff of tragedy. You will not turn bravely and painfully from your father, as the boy in the story does, but foresake him, without regret. And as you accept that separation, it seems to happen; your father's sad, fleshy face grows vague, and you blink it away and look up to where your teachers leans against his desk, one hand in a coat pocket, the other rubbing his bum knee as he listens desolately to the clever bore behind you saying something about bird imagery.

In the school, college or university class routine, there should be no classes for the teachers to conduct at a stretch such as 10-11, 11-12, 12-1. There must be a little gap in between the classes such as, 10-11, 11:10-12:10, 12:20-1:20. These gaps are so important because after conducting one class, a teacher needs some moments to reach another class. In addition, the students also need some time to freshen up. In fact, the classes in a row make them feel bored.

We grow up believing that what counts most in our lives is that which will occur in the future. Parents teach children that if they learn good habits now, they will be better off as adults. Teachers assure pupils that the boring classes will benefit them later, when the students are going to be looking for jobs. The company vice president tells junior employees to have patience and work hard, because one of these days they will be promoted to the executive ranks. At the end of the long struggle for advancement, the golden years of retirement beckon.

Fridays always felt different anyway. Friday afternoons especially. Everyone felt it, pupils and teachers alike. You could get away with more on a Friday afternoon because no one was entirely there anyway. Everyone was on a sort of threshold and often did and said anomalous things with the tacit understanding that in the cold light of Monday morning whatever had been said and done last thing on a Friday belonged to a completely different world and ought not to be acknowledged or referred to in any way, now that we were all so firmly installed back in this very familiar and boring one.

As youngest among us, but small no more, Your life can be trying, for we have the chore Of becoming your teachers, a terrible bore. "We've got experience! Take it from me!" "We've done this all before, you see. We know the ropes, we know the same." Since time immemorial, always the same. One's own shortcomings are nothing but fluff, But everyone else's are heavier stuff: Faultfinding comes easy when this is our plight, But it's hard for your parents, try as they might, To treat you with fairness, and kindness as well; Nitpicking's a habit that's hard to dispel. Men you're living with old folks, all you can do Is put up with their nagging -- it's hard but it's true. The pill may be bitter, but down it must go, For it's meant to keep the peace, you know. The many months here have not been in vain, Since wasting time noes against your Brain. You read and study nearly all the day, Determined to chase the boredom away. The more difficult question, much harder to bear, Is "What on earth do I have to wear? I've got no more panties, my clothes are too tight, My shirt is a loincloth, I'm really a siaht! To put on my shoes I must off my toes, Dh dear, I'm plagued with so many woes!

In their writing on education, Deci and Ryan proceed from the principle that humans are natural learners and children are born creative and curious, “intrinsically motivated for the types of behaviors that foster learning and development.” This idea is complicated, however, by the fact that part of learning anything, be it painting or programming or eighth-grade algebra, involves a lot of repetitive practice, and repetitive practice is usually pretty boring. Deci and Ryan acknowledge that many of the tasks that teachers ask students to complete each day are not inherently fun or satisfying; it is the rare student who feels a deep sense of intrinsic motivation when memorizing her multiplication tables. It is at these moments that extrinsic motivation becomes important: when behaviors must be performed not for the inherent satisfaction of completing them, but for some separate outcome. Deci and Ryan say that when students can be encouraged to internalize those extrinsic motivations, the motivations become increasingly powerful. This is where the psychologists return to their three basic human needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. When teachers are able to create an environment that promotes those three feelings, they say, students exhibit much higher levels of motivation. And how does a teacher create that kind of environment? Students experience autonomy in the classroom, Deci and Ryan explain, when their teachers “maximize a sense of choice and volitional engagement” while minimizing students’ feelings of coercion and control. Students feel competent, they say, when their teachers give them tasks that they can succeed at but that aren’t too easy — challenges just a bit beyond their current abilities. And they feel a sense of relatedness when they perceive that their teachers like and value and respect them.

I’ve had stupid teachers, lazy teachers, boring teachers, teachers who were teachers because their parents were and they hadn’t the imagination to think of anything else, teachers who were teachers because of cowardice, because of fear, because of the holidays, because of the pensions, because they were never called to account, never had to actually be any good, ones who could not survive in any other profession, who were not aware they had trod on butterflies. But none of those compared to Mr Maurice Crossan. He was the one who first stamped on my brother’s soul. He was dark, as they say here. For those who want more of him visit the dark character of Orlick Dolge in Great Expectations and cross that with a ginger-headed weasel.

...she knew from school that that sort of literature was boring: Gorky was correct but somehow ponderous; Mayakovsky was very correct but somehow awkward; Saltykov-Shchedrin was progressive, but you could die yawning if you tried to read him through; Turgenev was limited to his nobleman's ideals; Goncharov was associated with the beginnings of Russian capitalism; Lev Tolstoi came to favor patriarchal peasantry—and their teacher did not recommend reading Tolstoi's novels because they were very long and only confused the clear critical essays written about him. And then they reviewed a batch of writers totally unknown to anyone: Dostoyevsky, Stepnyak-Kravchinsky, and Sukhovo-Kobylin. It was true that one did not even have to remember the titles of their works. In all this long procession, only Pushkin shone like a sun.

Mother, you sent me to piano lessons And praised my arabesques and trills Although each teacher found my touch Oddly wooden in spite of scales And the hours of practicing, my ear Tone-deaf and yes, unteachable. I learned, I learned, I learned elsewhere, From muses unhired by you, dear mother, I woke one day to see you, mother, Floating above me in bluest air On a green balloon bright with a million Flowers and bluebirds that never were Never, never, found anywhere. But the little planet bobbed away Like a soap-bubble as you called: Come here! And I faced my traveling companions. Day now, night now, at head, side, feet, They stand their vigil in gowns of stone, Faces blank as the day I was born, Their shadows long in the setting sun That never brightens or goes down. And this is the kingdom you bore me to, Mother, mother. But no frown of mine Will betray the company I keep.

And what books should we so read? The principle which has never failed to confer superiority on a man's thinking activity is the well-worn precept: DO NOT READ GOOD BOOKS—life is too short for that—ONLY READ THE BEST. This simple recipe is as infallible as good air and good food are in physical hygiene. Yet, it is a fact that nineteen out of twenty modern people quake away from it. "Masterpieces again," they groan, "The Aeneid, the Divina Commedia, Paradise Lost, we have heard that before: much rather be ordinary than bored." The notion that masterpieces are boresome school books interpreted by dull teachers, or examination stuff, is a marvellous product of education. Ignorance is assuredly less deadly, for it can create no such inferiority complex as the schoolboy's notion of his lack of kinship with the best literature. But this phantasm can easily be exorcised if we modify the above principle to: ONLY READ WHAT GIVES YOU THE GREATEST PLEASURE.

The first letter sounded like the kind of letter a teacher would make a kid write to a guest speaker who’d had a breakdown in front of a bunch of seventh-graders. ‘Mr. Meeink, thank you for talking to our class. You were brave to share your story.’ The second letter was about the same: ‘Mr. Meeink, thank you for visiting us and talking about what happened to you.’ A few letters in, a few of the students wrote, ‘I’m going to try to be nicer from now on,’ and ‘I promise I won’t ever hate anybody.’ I remember thinking it was nice of the teacher to have some of the kids pretend they got my point. Then I hit this letter that changed everything: ‘Mr. Meeink, I bet you had a long, boring ride back to Philly.’ That’s all it said. That was exactly the kind of letter I would’ve chicken-scratched in seventh grade. That was the real deal. And if that was real, so were the others. Some of those kids had actually heard me through all the crying. My words had made a difference.

Ti ljupko oblikovani primjerci ljudske vrste u ovom prigradskom kmu rade svoj posao ne pokazujući nikakve znakove boli, čak ni bilo kakve naznake da bi mogli osjetiti bol. Kao da su od gume. Bol je samo posljedica volje za užitkom, za razaranjem, uništavanjem i napokon, u svojem najsavršenijem obliku, neka vrsta užitka. Erika bi rado prekoračila granicu vlastitog uništenja. U nespretnim ševama prigradskih kina ima puno više nade da će glumci osjetiti bol, da će njihova lica ukrasiti izraz boli. Ti jadni, otrcani naturščici s puno se više ljubavi unose u svoj posao jer su puno zahvalniji da mogu nastupiti u pra¬vom filmu. Puni su nedostataka, na koži im se vide mrlje, prištevi, ožiljci, bore, kraste, celulit i naslage sala. Kosa im je loše obojena. Znojni su. Prljavih nogu. U estetski zahtjevnim filmovima u tapeciranim kinima u središtu grada može se vidjeti samo površina muškaraca i žena. I jedni i drugi kao da su presvučeni najlonskom opnom otpornom na prljavštinu.

On the first day of sophomore English, he blew in like a cool breeze, welcomed them, and then printed something on the board that Pete Saubers never forgot: ‘What do you make of this, ladies and gentlemen?’ he asked. ‘What on earth can it mean?’ The class was silent. ‘I’ll tell you, then. It happens to be the most common criticism made by young ladies and gentlemen such as yourselves, doomed to a course where we begin with excerpts from Beowulf and end with Raymond Carver. Among teachers, such survey courses are sometimes called GTTG: Gallop Through the Glories.’ He screeched cheerfully, also waggling his hands at shoulder height in a yowza-yowza gesture. Most of the kids laughed along, Pete among them. ‘Class verdict on Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”? This is stupid! “Young Goodman Brown,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne? This is stupid! “Mending Wall,” by Robert Frost? This is moderately stupid! The required excerpt from Moby-Dick? This is extremely stupid!’ More laughter. None of them had read Moby-Dick, but they all knew it was hard and boring. Stupid, in other words.

Neither that I picked my nose compulsively, daydreamed through my boring classes, masturbated, once in a condom I stole from my father’s drawer, enraptured by its half-chemical, half-organic odor; nor my obsessions with smells in general, earth, dead rats, even my baby sister’s diaper shit, which made me pleasantly retch; nor that I filched money from my mother for candy and so knew early on I was a thief, a sneak, a liar: none of that convinced me I was “bad,” subversive and perverse, so much as that purveyor of morality—parent, teacher, maybe even treacherous friend—who inculcated the unannulable conviction in me that the most egregious wrong, of which I was clearly already despicably, irredeemably guilty, was my abiding involvement with myself. Even now, only rarely am I able to convince myself that my reluctance to pass on my most secret reflections, meditations, theorizings, all the modes by which I manage to distract myself, arises from my belief that out of my appalling inner universe nothing anyway could possibly be extracted, departicularized, and offered as an instance of anything at all to anyone else.

Because this land they live in is a land of missing things. A land stripped of its gold, its rivers, its buffalo, its Indians, its tiger, its jackals, its birds and its green and its living. To move through this land and believe Ba's tales is to see each hill as a burial mound with its own crown of bones. Who could believe that and survive? Who could believe that and keep from looking, as Ba and Sam do, always toward the past? Letting it drag behind them. Letting it make them into fools. And so Lucy fears that unwritten history. Easier to dismiss all Ba's tales as tall ones - because believe, and where does it end? If she believes that tigers live, then does she believe that Indians are hunted and dying? If she believes in fish the size of men, does she believe in men who string up others like linefuls of catch? Easier to avoid that history, unwritten as it is except in the soughing of dry grass, in the marks of lost trails, in the rumors from the mouths of bored men and mean girls, in the cracked patterns of buffalo bone. Easier by far to read the history that Teacher Leigh teaches, those names and dates orderly as bricks, stacked to build a civilization.

In graduate school he’d had a teacher who had told him that the best actors are the most boring people. A strong sense of self was detrimental, because an actor had to let the self disappear; he had to let himself be subsumed by a character. “If you want to be a personality, be a pop star,” his teacher had said. He had understood the wisdom of this, and still did, but really, the self was what they all craved, because the more you acted, the further and further you drifted from who you thought you were, and the harder and harder it was to find your way back. Was it any wonder that so many of his peers were such wrecks? They made their money, their lives, their identities by impersonating others—was it a surprise, then, that they needed one set, one stage after the next, to give their lives shape? Without them, what and who were they? And so they took up religions, and girlfriends, and causes to give them something that could be their own: they never slept, they never stopped, they were terrified to be alone, to have to ask themselves who they were. (“When an actor talks and there’s no one to hear him, is he still an actor?” his friend Roman had once asked. He sometimes wondered.)

There is a kind of unspoken collusion going on in mainstream science education: you get your competent but bored, insecure and hence stodgy teacher talking to an audience divided between engineering students, who are going to be responsible for making bridges that won’t fall down or airplanes that won’t suddenly plunge vertically into the ground at six hundred miles an hour, and who by definition get sweaty palms and vindictive attitudes when their teacher suddenly veers off track and begins raving about wild and completely nonintuitive phenomena; and physics students, who derive much of their self-esteem from knowing that they are smarter and morally purer than the engineering students, and who by definition don’t want to hear about anything that makes no fucking sense. This collusion results in the professor saying: (something along the lines of) dust is heavier than air, therefore it falls until it hits the ground. That’s all there is to know about dust. The engineers love it because they like their issues dead and crucified like butterflies under glass. The physicists love it because they want to think they understand everything. No one asks difficult questions. And outside the windows, the dust devils continue to gambol across the campus.

Figure out the secret yet?” he asked, leaning on the nearest cot like he’d made himself dizzy. “Um. Not really,” Sophie admitted. Ro snorted. “Wow. You’re a horrible teacher.” “Psh, I’m the best,” Keefe insisted. “No boring lectures. And Foster’ll get it this time—you’ll see.” He floated the scrap of bandage back toward himself, then set it back down. “You know what? It’ll be easier to notice with something bigger. Hmmmmmm . . . Oh! I know!” He lunged and thrust his arms toward Ro—who yelped as she launched toward the ceiling. “Put. Me. Down!” “Aw, is the big, tough ogre princess scared of a little elf-y mind trick?” Keefe asked. “You realize I can end you with one dagger, right?” Ro asked, drawing one from the sheath around her thigh. “And there’s no way you’d be fast enough to stop it.” “Probably not,” Keefe agreed. “But I could do this.” He let her plummet, then blasted her back up with a big enough jolt to knock her weapon from her grasp. “Uh, I’m pretty sure she’s going to murder you in your sleep tonight,” Sophie warned. “Oh, I’m planning something much more painful than that,” Ro snarled. “See, and I thought you’d be honored to be part of this important moment, when Foster shows us how much she’s learned from my brilliant demonstration. Go ahead,” he told Sophie. “Tell Ro the secret.

Neither that I picked my nose compulsively, daydreamed through my boring classes, masturbated, once in a condom I stole from my father’s drawer, enraptured by its half-chemical, half-organic odor; nor my obsessions with smells in general, earth, dead rats, even my baby sister’s diaper shit, which made me pleasantly retch; nor that I filched money from my mother for candy and so knew early on I was a thief, a sneak, a liar: none of that convinced me I was “bad,” subversive and perverse, so much as that purveyor of morality—parent, teacher, maybe even treacherous friend—who inculcated the unannulable conviction in me that the most egregious wrong, of which I was clearly already despicably, irredeemably guilty, was my abiding involvement with myself. Even now, only rarely am I able to convince myself that my reluctance to pass on my most secret reflections, meditations, theorizings, all the modes by which I manage to distract myself, arises from my belief that out of my appalling inner universe nothing anyway could possibly be extracted, departicularized, and offered as an instance of anything at all to anyone else. An overrefined sense of generosity, I opine; an unwillingness to presume upon others by hauling them into this barn, this sty, where mental vermin gobble, lust, excrete. Not a lack of sensitivity but a specialization of that lobe of it which most appreciates the unspoken wish of others: to stay free of that rank habitation within me I call “me.” Really, though: to consider one’s splendid self-made self as after all benevolent, propelled by secret altruism? Aren’t I, outer mouth and inner masticating self-excusing sublimations, still really back there in my neither-land? Aren’t I still a thief, stealing from some hoard of language trash to justify my inner stink? Maybe let it go, just let it go.

Creating “Correct” Children in the Classroom One of the most popular discipline programs in American schools is called Assertive Discipline. It teaches teachers to inflict the old “obey or suffer” method of control on students. Here you disguise the threat of punishment by calling it a choice the child is making. As in, “You have a choice, you can either finish your homework or miss the outing this weekend.” Then when the child chooses to try to protect his dignity against this form of terrorism, by refusing to do his homework, you tell him he has chosen his logical, natural consequence of being excluded from the outing. Putting it this way helps the parent or teacher mitigate against the bad feelings and guilt that would otherwise arise to tell the adult that they are operating outside the principles of compassionate relating. This insidious method is even worse than outand-out punishing, where you can at least rebel against your punisher. The use of this mind game teaches the child the false, crazy-making belief that they wanted something bad or painful to happen to them. These programs also have the stated intention of getting the child to be angry with himself for making a poor choice. In this smoke and mirrors game, the children are “causing” everything to happen and the teachers are the puppets of the children’s choices. The only ones who are not taking responsibility for their actions are the adults. Another popular coercive strategy is to use “peer pressure” to create compliance. For instance, a teacher tells her class that if anyone misbehaves then they all won’t get their pizza party. What a great way to turn children against each other. All this is done to help (translation: compel) children to behave themselves. But of course they are not behaving themselves: they are being “behaved” by the adults. Well-meaning teachers and parents try to teach children to be motivated (translation: do boring or aversive stuff without questioning why), responsible (translation: thoughtless conformity to the house rules) people. When surveys are conducted in which fourth-graders are asked what being good means, over 90% answer “being quiet.” And when teachers are asked what happens in a successful classroom, the answer is, “the teacher is able to keep the students on task” (translation: in line, doing what they are told). Consulting firms measuring teacher competence consider this a major criterion of teacher effectiveness. In other words if the students are quietly doing what they were told the teacher is evaluated as good. However my understanding of ‘real learning’ with twenty to forty children is that it is quite naturally a bit noisy and messy. Otherwise children are just playing a nice game of school, based on indoctrination and little integrated retained education. Both punishments and rewards foster a preoccupation with a narrow egocentric self-interest that undermines good values. All little Johnny is thinking about is “How much will you give me if I do X? How can I avoid getting punished if I do Y? What do they want me to do and what happens to me if I don’t do it?” Instead we could teach him to ask, “What kind of person do I want to be and what kind of community do I want to help make?” And Mom is thinking “You didn’t do what I wanted, so now I’m going to make something unpleasant happen to you, for your own good to help you fit into our (dominance/submission based) society.” This contributes to a culture of coercion and prevents a community of compassion. And as we are learning on the global level with our war on terrorism, as you use your energy and resources to punish people you run out of energy and resources to protect people. And even if children look well-behaved, they are not behaving themselves They are being behaved by controlling parents and teachers.

Men traveling alone develop a romantic vertigo. Bech had already fallen in love with a freckled embassy wife in Russia, a buck-toothed chanteuse in Rumania, a stolid Mongolian sculptress in Kazakhstan. In the Tretyakov Gallery he had fallen in love with a recumbent statue, and at the Moscow Ballet School with an entire roomful of girls. Entering the room, he had been struck by the aroma, tenderly acrid, of young female sweat. Sixteen and seventeen, wearing patchy practice suits, the girls were twirling so strenuously their slippers were unraveling. Demure student faces crowned the unconscious insolence of their bodies. The room was doubled in depth by a floor-to-ceiling mirror. Bech was seated on a bench at its base. Staring above his head, each girl watched herself with frowning eyes frozen, for an instant in the turn, by the imperious delay and snap of her head. Bech tried to remember the lines of Rilke that expressed it, this snap and delay: did not the drawing remain/that the dark stroke of your eyebrow/swiftly wrote on the wall of its own turning? At one point the teacher, a shapeless old Ukrainian lady with gold canines, a prima of the thirties, had arisen and cried something translated to Bech as, “No, no, the arms free, free!” And in demonstration she had executed a rapid series of pirouettes with such proud effortlessness that all the girls, standing this way and that like deer along the wall, had applauded. Bech had loved them for that. In all his loves, there was an urge to rescue—to rescue the girls from the slavery of their exertions, the statue from the cold grip of its own marble, the embassy wife from her boring and unctuous husband, the chanteuse from her nightly humiliation (she could not sing), the Mongolian from her stolid race. But the Bulgarian poetess presented herself to him as needing nothing, as being complete, poised, satisfied, achieved. He was aroused and curious and, the next day, inquired about her of the man with the vaguely contemptuous mouth of a hare—a novelist turned playwright and scenarist, who accompanied him to the Rila Monastery. “She lives to write,” the playwright said. “I do not think it is healthy.

I was never a child; I never had a childhood. I cannot count among my memories warm, golden days of childish intoxication, long joyous hours of innocence, or the thrill of discovering the universe anew each day. I learned of such things later on in life from books. Now I guess at their presence in the children I see. I was more than twenty when I first experienced something similar in my self, in chance moments of abandonment, when I was at peace with the world. Childhood is love; childhood is gaiety; childhood knows no cares. But I always remember myself, in the years that have gone by, as lonely, sad, and thoughtful. Ever since I was a little boy I have felt tremendously alone―and "peculiar". I don't know why. It may have been because my family was poor or because I was not born the way other children are born; I cannot tell. I remember only that when I was six or seven years old a young aunt of mind called me [i]vecchio[/i]―"old man," and the nickname was adopted by all my family. Most of the time I wore a long, frowning face. I talked very little, even with other children; compliments bored me; baby-talk angered me. Instead of the noisy play of the companions of my boyhood I preferred the solitude of the most secluded corners of our dark, cramped, poverty-stricken home. I was, in short, what ladies in hats and fur coats call a "bashful" or a "stubborn" child; and what our women with bare heads and shawls, with more directness, call a [i]rospo[/i]―a "toad." They were right. I must have been, and I was, utterly unattractive to everybody. I remember, too, that I was well aware of the antipathy I aroused. It made me more "bashful," more "stubborn," more of a "toad" than ever. I did not care to join in the games played by other boys, but preferred to stand apart, watching them with jealous eyes, judging them, hating them. It wasn't envy I felt at such times: it was contempt; it was scorn. My warfare with men had begun even then and even there. I avoided people, and they neglected me. I did not love them, and they hated me. At play in the parks some of the boys would chase me; others would laugh at me and call me names. At school they pulled my curls or told the teachers tales about me. Even on my grandfather's farm in the country peasant brats threw stones at me without provocation, as if they felt instinctively that I belonged to some other breed.

Declan had been told a long time ago that he had to know what he wanted, or he'd never get it. Not by his father, because his father would never have delivered such pragmatic advice in such a pragmatic way. No, even if Niall Lynch believed in the sentiment, he would have wrapped it up in a long story filled with metaphor and magic and nonsense riddles. Only years after the storytelling would Declan be sitting somewhere and realize that all along Niall had been trying to teach him to balance his checkbook, or whatever the tale had really been about. Niall could never just say the thing. No, this piece of advice--You have to know what you want, or you'll never get it--was given to Declan by a senator from Nevada he'd met during a DC field trip back in eighth grade. The other children had been bored by the pale stone restraint of the city and the sameness of the law and government offices they toured. Declan, however, had been fascinated. He'd asked the senator what advice he had for those looking to get into politics. "Come from money," the senator had said first, and then when all the eighth graders and their teachers had stared without laughing, he added, "You have to know what you want, or you'll never get it. Make goals." Declan made goals. The goal was DC. The goal was politics. The goal was structure, and more structure, and yet more structure. He took AP classes on political science and policy. When he traveled with his father to black markets, he wrote papers. When he took calls from gangsters and shady antique auction houses, he arranged drop-offs near DC and wrangled meetings with HR people. Aglionby Academy made calls and pulled strings; he got names, numbers, internships. All was going according to plan. His father's will conveniently left him a townhouse adjacent to DC. Declan pressed on. He kept his brothers alive; he graduated; he moved to DC. He made the goal, he went towards the goal. When he took his first lunch meeting with his new boss, he found himself filled with the same anticipation he'd had as an eighth grader. This was the place, he thought, where things happened. Just across the road was the Mexican embassy. Behind him was the IMF. GW Law School was a block away. The White House, the USPS, the Red Cross, all within a stone's throw. This was before he understood there was no making it for him. He came from money, yeah, but the wrong kind of money. Niall Lynch's clout was not relevant in this daylight world; he only had status in the night. And one could not rise above that while remaining invisible to protect one's dangerous brother. On that first day of work, Declan walked into the Renwick Gallery and stood inside an installation that had taken over the second floor around the grand staircase. Tens of thousands of black threads had been installed at points all along the ceiling, tangling around the Villareal LED sculpture that normally lit the room, snarling the railing over the stairs, blocking out the light from the tall arches that bordered the walls, turning the walkways into dark, confusing rabbit tunnels. Museumgoers had to pick their way through with caution lest they be snared and bring the entire world down with them. He had, bizarrely, felt tears burning the corners of his eyes. Before that, he hadn't understood that his goals and what he wanted might not be the same thing. This was where he'd found art.

He became sin so you could be holy. He was broken so you could be whole. He was a man of sorrow, so you could have joy. He was bruised for your iniquity. He fasted so you could feast. By His stripes, you were healed. He bore poverty, so you could righteously prosper. He felt orphaned so you could be adopted as sons. Let us begin to see Him not so much as a teacher or moral guide, but as one who stepped in and took our place.

The same class can be a delight for one student and a torment for another. One is excited; the other is bored. Both students are in the same place, and both are listening to the same teacher. But one is in heaven and the other is in hell.

What You Think What it Really Is To Do I am just stupid at this subject. Unrealistic expectation. Reset the shame and start working on it. I’ll never get as smart as ‘Sharma ji ka beta’. Unfair comparison. Try automaticity explained in this book. My mind is blank right now. You need refreshment. Take a break, split the problems into smaller parts, and pick one piece to start. This is so damn boring. You don’t really understand the subject. You haven’t done research on it. Do it, and you’ll find out that it is interesting. Everybody keeps nagging me. Your brand needs reinvention. Find a person who you trust the most. Ask him/ her how you can improve your brand. This seems to be a lot of work. You need a goal. Find out why you are doing this. Connect with what you want to do.

Matthias Zerfass, of his own accord, acknowledged that he was a teacher among them, and remained firm and patient under torture, and was then beheaded. He wrote from prison: “The chief object of our torture has been that we should say how many of us were teachers, and reveal their names and addresses…. I was to acknowledge the authorities as Christian and that infant baptism is right; I pressed my lips together, yielded myself to God, suffered patiently, and thought of the Lord’s word when He said, ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.’ It looks as though I have still much to suffer, but the Lord alone has it in His hand, and I can pray for nothing except that His will be done.” An instruction was issued as follows: “In order to arrest the leaders, teachers, bush-preachers, and corner-preachers of the sectaries… officials shall send spies into the hedges, fens, and moors, especially at the approach of the more important festivals, and when there is full and continued moonlight, in order to discover their secret meeting-places.” Yet in 1534 the Bishop of Münster, in writing to the Pope, bore testimony to the excellent lives of the Anabaptists.

Darlene Lee had been a grade school teacher until she got bored, went back for a degree in mechanical engineering,

Sarah hated school though not like most kids. It was more than a simple dislike for teachers and their boring lectures. No, she had a solid, strong, smothering hate for the institution. Dozens of teenagers in an enclosed space never had any good results.

Post-script: When my tutor got a famous scholarship and went to Oxford, he broke my heart, of course. I sobbed in cafés and hotel bars, bored my friends half to death, and thought myself tragically bereft. I cannot in all honesty claim to have been liberated from anything in particular by my relationship with this man. I hated his subject and was bad at it, failed it twice and did not care. He made me laugh, that's the main thing I remember. I often felt he was privately laughing at me, from the eminence of his twenty-four years. This made me watchful and defensive....it had never occurred to me to call what happened between me and my tutor 'sexual harassment' or 'abuse of power'.

now that many schools receive funding based on test results, teachers teach for those outcomes, not for curiosity or critical thinking, nor for learning nonspecific principals or values. Such training to focus on fact memorization lowers the intellectual level of the teachers themselves, not just their bored students. 

I am the English teacher who teaches the “boring stuff”— I teach a class on grammar called Writing Skills.

I am the English teacher who teaches the “boring stuff”— I teach a class on grammar called Writing Skills. My students think I love grammar. That just says one thing to me: I chose the wrong profession— I should have been an actress. I don’t love grammar. Loving grammar is like loving oatmeal.

ORIGIN OF CONCENTRATION CAMPS When Namibia won its independence in 1990, the main avenue of the capital city still bore the name Göring. Not for Hermann, the Nazi, but in honor of his father, Heinrich Göring, one of the perpetrators of the first genocide of the twentieth century. That Göring, who represented the German Empire in the southwest corner of Africa, kindly approved in 1904 an annihilation order given by General Lothar von Trotta. The Hereros, black shepherds, had risen up in rebellion. The colonial authorities expelled them all and warned that any Herero found in Namibia, man, woman, or child, armed or unarmed, would be killed. Of every four Hereros, three were killed, by cannon fire or the desert sun. The survivors of the butchery ended up in concentration camps set up by Göring. And Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow pronounced for the very first time the word “Konzentrationslager.” The camps, inspired by a British forerunner in South Africa, combined confinement, forced labor, and scientific experimentation. The prisoners, emaciated from a life in the gold and diamond mines, served as human guinea pigs for research into inferior races. In those laboratories worked Theodor Mollison and Eugen Fischer, who later became the teachers of Josef Mengele. Mengele carried forth their work as of 1933, the year that Göring the son set up the first concentration camps in Germany, following the model his father pioneered in Africa.

Sam Pickett, English teacher and former basketball coach at Willow Creek High School, scrounged for sleep in his tangled bed. He was thirty-six years old and he hadn’t a clue as to who he was or what his life was about. He bore a wound he couldn’t heal. He

Without wisdom, a teacher is nothing more than a research paper: a knowledge filled text which is boring and has no practical use. With wisdom, a teacher is like a great novel: a text filled with knowledge, practical applications and, above all, fun.

•  Create a base of rigorous learning opportunities. Teachers begin with clear ideas about what learning should occur as the result of a lesson or unit aligned with assessments and standards. Then, teachers connect students with the curriculum by transforming student-boring topics into student-friendly concepts that have enduring value beyond the classroom, lie at the heart of the discipline, require analysis, have the potential to engage students, and span various cultures. Give students a reason for studying the curriculum.

Hello Mrs Cannon,' said Melanie. 'Friday wants me to distract you so that she can get Parker to say something that isn't on his official scripts.' 'Really?' said Mrs Cannon. 'That sounds intriguing. Much more intriguing than this unspeakably boring polo match. Why don't you pretend to sprain your ankle, then I could pretend to be concerned?' 'Okay,' said Melanie. 'Does that mean I can lie down?' 'I wouldn't dream of trying to stop you,' said Mrs Cannon. 'I just wish I could do the same.' 'You could say you had a fainting spell,' suggested Melanie. 'What a good idea,' said Mrs Cannon. 'If you've got a sprained ankle and I have a fainting spell, then we can both have a nice rest on the grass.' 'The Headmaster can't complain about that,' said Melanie as they both made themselves comfortable. 'Of course not,' said Mrs Cannon. 'If he did I'd report him to my union.

Jeong-dae, who nonchalantly slid the blackboard cleaner into his book bag. ‘What’re you taking that for?’ ‘To give to my sister.’ ‘What’s she going to do with it?’ ‘Well, she keeps talking about it. It’s her main memory of middle school.’ ‘A blackboard cleaner? Must have been a pretty boring time.’ ‘No, it’s just there was a story connected with it. It was April Fool’s Day, and the kids in her class covered the entire blackboard with writing, for a prank - you know, because the teacher would have to spend ages getting it all off before he could start the lesson. But when he came in and saw it he just yelled, “Who’s classroom monitor this week?” - and it was my sister. The rest of the class carried on with the lesson while she stood out in the corridor, dangling the cloth out of the window and beating it with a stick to bash the chalk dust out. It is funnv, though, isn’t it? Two years at middle school, and that’s what she remembers most.

And then I read about Mary Wood. The outlines of the case were not much different from others I’d heard: She was a teacher in South Carolina who had been forced to drop Between the World and Me from her lesson plan because it made some of her students, in their words, “feel uncomfortable” and “ashamed to be Caucasian.” Moreover, they were sure that the very subject of the book—“systemic racism”—was “illegal.” These complaints bore an incredible resemblance to the language of 13950, which prohibited “divisive concepts” that provoked in students “discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex.

The reason this will happen, and happen soon, is that learners will demand it to the point that management, teachers and administrators can no longer resist. The workers of the Games Generations will no longer accept, attend, or do training that is boring. So

School Code of Conduct. Everything you need to know about how to behave at school—and how not to behave—is right here in this book.” A bunch of teachers came around and started handing out a copy to each student in the gym. “When you receive yours, open up to page one and follow along with me,” Stricker said. Then she started reading… really… slowly. “‘Section One: Hills Village Middle School Dress Code…’” When I got my copy, I flipped all the way to the back of the book. There were sixteen sections and twenty-six pages total. In other words, we were going to be lucky to get out of this assembly by Christmas. “‘… All students are expected to dress appropriately for an academic environment. No student shall wear clothing of a size more than two beyond his or her normal size….’” HELP! That’s what I was thinking about then. Middle school had just started, and they were already trying to bore us to death. Please, somebody stop Mrs. Stricker before she kills again! Leo took out a pen and started drawing something on the inside of the back cover. Stricker turned to the next page and kept reading. “‘Section Two: Prohibited Items. No student shall bring to school any electronic equipment not intended for class purposes. This includes cell phones, iPods, cameras, laptop computers….’” The whole thing went on and on. And on. And on. By the time we got to Section 6 (“Grounds for Expulsion”), my brain was turning into guacamole, and I’m pretty sure my ears were bleeding too. People always talk about how great it is to get older. All I saw were more rules and more adults telling me what I could and couldn’t do, in the name of what’s “good for me.” Yeah, well, asparagus is good for me, but it still makes me want to throw up. As far as I could tell, this little green book in my hands was just one long list of all the ways I could—and probably would—get into trouble between now and the end of the school year. Meanwhile, Leo was drawing away like the maniac he is. Every time Stricker mentioned another rule, he scribbled something else on the page in front of him. Finally, he turned it around and showed me what he was working on.

EXAMPLES OF TOLERANCE 1Long and successful married life means tolerating hell of nuisance of each other 2Listening to boring lectures and appreciating teachers makes successful and tolerant students 3Ignoring all the noises of students makes successful and tolerant teacher 4Swallowing all insults makes successful and tolerant politicians 5Perfect deceiving each other makes successful and tolerant lovers BEST OF TOLERANCE IS LISTEN LESS THINK MORE AND IGNORE THE FOOLISH PEOPLE

Don’t judge a book by it’s cover, kiddies. That boring lady math teacher might be rocking out and flaunting her killer body, tattoos and piercings when you’re not looking.

Ignoring all the whispering couples around him, Vaughn taught me to bowl while I faked like I cared. We were both on the outs and I suspected he wanted to find a new buddy now that Judd was attached to his angel. Every time Tawny laughed, Vaughn’s frown darkened. “You should be happy for them,” I said as he guided me towards the alley. “I am. Fucking overwhelmed with happiness. Now, pay attention.” When I flinched at his tone, Vaughn sighed. “It gets boring when your best friend is busy mating like a rabbit.” “My best friend ditched me too, so I found new friends. Maybe you should too.” “Crap no. Sounds like too much effort.” I grinned. “You could play with Bailey. Here, she comes.” Vaughn didn’t even glance at the arriving blonde who threw her hands in the air. “I got dumped again! Men suck! I hate them all!” she cried, enjoying a hug from Tawny. “Who wants to set me up now?” “I thought you hated men,” Tucker mumbled with his mouth full of a hot dog. “I do, but one of them has got to work, right? Everyone in the world gets someone good, but I get shit. It’s not fair. I’m nicer than anyone ever.” This comment elicited laughter from the crew including Vaughn who took my bowling ball and rolled it for me. “Look,” he said,” you got a strike. I’m an excellent teacher.” “Best ever.

Many teachers felt that no matter how creative they were in the classroom, it wouldn’t make a difference anyway. They talked about a devastating erosion in standards, how the students of today bore no resemblance to the students of even ten or fifteen years ago, how their preoccupations were with anything but school. It was hard for teachers not to feel depressed by the lack of rudimentary knowledge, like in the history class in which students were asked to name the president after John F. Kennedy. Several students meekly raised their hands and proffered the name of Harry Truman. None gave the correct answer of Lyndon Johnson, who also happened to have been a native Texan. In 1975, the average SAT score on the combined math and verbal sections at Permian was 963. For the senior class of 1988–89, the average combined SAT score was 85 points lower, 878. During the seventies, it had been normal for Permian to have seven seniors qualify as National Merit semi-finalists. In the 1988–89 school year the number dropped to one, which the superintendent of schools, Hugh Hayes, acknowledged was inexcusable for a school the size of Permian with a student body that was rooted in the middle class. (A year later, with the help of $15,000 in consultant’s fees to identify those who might pass the required test, the number went up to five.)

But later in high school she became both bored and confused. Bored at the trivia she was taught and confused by the inconsistencies of the teachers who taught it. She wanted to learn how to deal with reality and evaluate it objectively, how to think. She was taught that language has no meaning, poetry needs no structure, and philosophy is fine in theory but useless in practice.

A post at St Polycarp’s. I was getting quite bored being at home all day.’ ‘When do you start?’ ‘Next month. I’m replacing a teacher on maternity leave.’ I turn to Rufus. ‘Jack tells me you have a huge garden,’ I prompt and, while I serve more of the beef Wellington, which, along with the vegetables, has been keeping warm on a hotplate, the conversation around the table revolves around landscaping rather

Imagine what would happen if schools taught with the same approach to curriculum that most churches use. One year, a teacher stumbles onto an engaging curriculum on verbs, with some really cool videos on gerunds. When the kids and teachers get bored with that curriculum, they cut it short, and the teacher runs to the curriculum store, finds a compelling study on algebraic equations (narrated by Rob Bell-Curve), and starts to teach that the next week. When that study is winding down, the teacher decides it’s time to teach on rocks or medieval knights or Christmas around the world.

November 16: Saint Gertrude   Gertrude was born of a noble family at Eisleben, in Saxony.  At five years of age, she offered her virginity and herself to Jesus Christ, in the Benedictine nunnery at Rodersdorf.  From that time forth she was utterly estranged from earthly things, ever striving for things higher, and began to lead a kind of heavenly life.  To learning in human letters she added knowledge of the things of God.  In the thought thereof she earnestly desired, and soon reached, the perfection of a Christian soul.  Of Christ, and of the things in his life, she spake oftentimes with movings of spirit.  The glory of God was the one end of all her thoughts, and to that her every longing and her every act were given.  Though God had crowned her with so many and so noble gifts both of nature and of grace, her belief regarding herself was so humble that she was used to number as among the greatest of the wonders of his goodness that he had always in his mercy borne with one who was so utterly unworthy. In the thirtieth year of her age she was elected Abbess of Rodersdorf, where she had professed herself in the religious life, and afterwards of Helfta.  This office she bore for forty years in love, wisdom, and zeal for strict observance, so that the house seemed like an ideal ensample of a sisterhood of perfect nuns.  To each one she was a mother and a teacher, and yet would be as the least of all, being in sooth in all lowliness among them as she that served.  That she might be more utterly God's only, she tormented her body with sleeplessness, hunger, and other afflictions, but withal ever true to herself, stood forth a pattern of innocency, gentleness, and long-suffering.  The salvation of her neighbours was her constant earnest endeavour, and her godly toil bore abundant fruit.  The love of God oftentimes threw her into trances, and she was given the grace of the deepest contemplation, even to union of spirit with God. Christ himself, to shew what such a bride was to him, revealed that he had in the heart of Gertrude a pleasant dwelling-place.  The Virgin Mother of God she ever sought with deep reverence as a mother and warden whom she had received from Jesus himself, and from her she had many benefits.  Toward the most Divine Sacrament of the Eucharist, and the sufferings of the Lord, her soul was moved with love and gratitude, so that she sometimes wept abundantly.  She helped with daily gifts and prayers the souls of the just condemned to the purifying fire.  She wrote much for the fostering of godliness.  She was glorified also by revelations from God, and by the gift of prophecy.  Her last illness was rather the wasting of a home-sickness to be with God than a decay of the flesh, and she left this life in the year of our Lord 1292.  God made her bright with miracles both during her life and after her death.

The abundance of the children’s room must be every parent’s or child’s worst nightmare. “I’m bored.” “I’ve got nothing to play with”—even though the shelves are full to the brim. Dust-collectors, a useless mess. Where is the love for the teddy bear, the doll, the car? The present which was given in love and did not drown in abundance is hard to find. The child does not need the toys—the toy factories need the child.15

Teachers themselves uninterested in art or lacking faith in the ability of students to think for themselves can make art into something baffling or boring for the rest of the student’s life.

The tragic truth about boredom is that I have heard teacher after teacher bore their students to the point of tears while talking about the most important subject in all the world—the Bible!

The widower was so full of questions that I half expected him to ask for an identity card. The only thing I carry in my wallet is my driver's license. I should have something with my picture on it and a statement below that tells who I am. Megumi Naomi Nakane. Born June 18, 1936, Vancouver, British Columbia. Marital status: Old maid. Health: Fine, I suppose. Occupation: School teacher. I'm bored to death with teaching and ready to retire. What else would anyone want to know? Personality: Tense. Is that past or present tense? It's perpetual tense. I have the social graces of a common housefly. That's self-denigrating, isn't it.

To keep up interest in a subject, a teenager has to enjoy working in it. If the teacher makes the task of learning excessively difficult, the student will feel too frustrated and anxious to really get into it and enjoy it for its own sake. If the teacher makes learning too easy, the student will get bored and lose interest. The teacher has the difficult task of finding the right balance between the challenges he or she gives and the students' skills, so that enjoyment and the desire to learn more result.

If you recognize the genuineness of the testimony of Mary and Joanna, and realize that they became apostles, bearing witness to the risen Jesus, you have to recognize certain facts about the historical Jesus. He did not just present himself as a great teacher, a wise sage, a miracle worker, an exorcist. This inner circle knew better than that, and they were faithful to say so after the fact. The Jesus about whom the earliest disciples bore witness was and is the real Jesus of history and faith. The impact crater in the lives of these disciples, male and female, matches up with the impression Jesus deliberately left on these persons, as we will see in more detail as we turn now to Peter.