Learning that other teachers have similar experiences, and how they got through them, can really calm our nerves.
When we have bad experiences it can sometimes feel like we are alone but these quotes can help prove the ulterior.
We have gathered some inspiring and helpful quotes that can help you to manage your classroom, understand your pupils, and be confident to provide them with the best education you can by being your best self.
Keep reading below to find our favorite quotes concerning classroom management, so that you can turn your teaching career around today – find out more below!
Classroom Management Quotes
1. Socrates
“I Cannot Teach Anyone Anything; I Can Only Make Them Think”
Socrates was full of wisdom and here he targets teaching. If you can accept what Socrates is telling us here then you should be filled with all the confidence to manage your classroom.
When we understand we don’t necessarily have to fill people’s heads with knowledge but simply inspire them enough to think and tackle an issue then this is more valuable than teaching them one thing.
2. Benjamin Franklin
“Tell Me And I Forget; Teach me And I Remember; Involve Me And I Learn”
While your kids may forget what you teach them, they may even forget you, when the walls of your classroom have been knocked down your kids will remember the memories, not the knowledge.
If you can get your kids to feel involved, to be interested and forget they are in the classroom, then you have succeeded.
We shouldn’t measure our ability to teach by how many things someone has learned, but how our individual being has affected a person.
3. Carlette Hardin
“If The Goal Is To Have Children Take Responsibility For Their Behaviors, Teachers Must Allow Students To Make Decisions About What Is Right And Wrong”
Hardin is expressing the need for students to generate their own moral compasses. When we try to push what is right or wrong onto our pupils they will almost always push this away.
Like previously expressed, we can;t teach responsibility to our kids, we have to allow them to understand responsibility itself, when they form their own sense of morality and responsibility, and ethics at large, they will learn to take responsibility for their actions.
4. Robert John Meehan
“Great classrooms are characterized by positive, open relationships, mutual respect, and shared responsibility for the learning process.”
Here we can see that Meehan is expressing the necessity for open relationships in teaching. We must be friends, leaders, disciplinaries, and more as a teacher and we have to be open about that.
While we should have fun and be friends with students, they equally must understand the context we are in and that we have a job to do as much as they do.
As Meehan points out, when the responsibility of learning is shared with the student then you can really manage a classroom, and this comes with an open relationship.
5. J. Krishnamurti
“Real Learning Comes About When The Competitive Spirit Has Ceased.”
One way to manage a classroom is to heed this advice, that competition can be good in some ways, and is certainly something we must learn to navigate.
But if we want children to learn they have to take it upon themselves to do it for their own sake, rather than simply to beat their friends.
6. Albert Einstein
“I Never Teach My Pupils, I Only Attempt To Provide The Conditions In Which They Can Learn.”
This can highlight a potential issue with a classroom that is out of control, it may be that the environment is not ordered.
Perhaps the environment could be wrong, we could go outside to teach the kids there for a lesson, or just do something simple like changing the table layout.
Again, it shows that trying to force learning is not what works, but the best learning is when it occurs naturally.
7. Plato
“Bodily Exercise, When Compulsory, Does No Harm To The Body; But Knowledge Which Is Acquired Under Compulsion Obtains No Hold On The Mind.”
Even Plato understood that when forced, learning will never occur. We can learn from this that when a child feels that their learning is forced, compulsory, they won’t ever absorb the information.
Plato even muses that compulsory learning, forcing a child to learn a subject, can actually damage their experience of learning.
Sometimes we need to change our approach to a subject so that the pupil can organically reach the goals set rather than being forced to.
8. Elbert Hubbard
“The Object Of Teaching A Child Is To Enable Him To Get Along Without A Teacher.”
When a child can learn independently, then the teacher has perhaps done their job, as paradoxical as that is.
Sometimes we should change our approach to teaching so that we are removed, and that we have as little input as possible.
If a child can only learn or complete a task, when the teacher is present then they will never be able to apply it in their own life.
9. Chuang Tzu
“Rewards And Punishment Is The Lowest Form Of Education.”
This shows that punishing kids who don’t learn and rewarding those who do is not really an education.
We need to change how we view learning to avoid this, helping those who struggle and not necessarily creating competition among those who learn easily.
10. John Dewey
“Give The Pupils Something To Do, Not Something To learn; And The Doing Is Of Such A Nature As To Demand Thinking; Learning Naturally Results.”
Sometimes activities are really helpful in the classroom, not only can they keep a child entertained and involved.
But you can often get them to the learning objective you require through an activity, without them even realizing they have learned something. Sometimes we need to show rather than tell.
11. George Bernard Shaw
“I’m Not A Teacher: Only A Fellow Traveler Of Whom You Asked The Way. I Pointed Ahead – Ahead Of Myself As Well As You.”
Shaw is suggesting we should reevaluate how we see ourselves as teachers.
We shouldn’t gatekeep knowledge but understand that we learned a certain way and that the child will learn a certain way, but we need to understand that their learning journey extends past us, without us.
12. Amos Bronson Alcott
“The True Teacher Defends His Pupils Against His Own Personal Influence.”
Alcott is suggesting we need to teach in a way where our own personal reference and views are not an influence on the child.
That we need the child to come to these understanding on their own rather than coming to it the same way we did. This again requires us to understand the learning journey continues without the teacher.
13. Anatole France
“The Whole Art Of Teaching Is Only The Art Of Awakening The Natural Curiosity Of The Mind For The Purpose Of Satisfying It Afterwards.”
This quote can actually get to the heart of being a teacher. That we are not a messenger, but a friend, we have to incite the curiosity to learn in the student, rather than expecting them to learn without curiosity.
As teachers we are there to satisfy the curious mind, that is when teachers really shine, but teachers are nothing without this curiosity.
14. Amit Kalantr
“You Need Mountains, Long Staircases Don’t Make Good Hikers.”
This again speaks to how we present the learning journey. Sometimes the most obvious route is not successful.
But exploring a topic’s topography and crags, sometimes going back in yourself, moving laterally rather than forward, all these things are necessary to become a good learner.
15. Paul Halmos
“The Best Way To Learn Is To Do; The Worst Way To Teach Is To Talk.”
Again, this shows how the role of teachers is difficult, but a part of it is being almost unknown and making yourself defunct.
Sometimes if we are struggling to control a class it’s because they are just being talked at, they aren’t enjoying the learning.
They need something to do, to use their energy on, in order to fully grasp a topic.
You have to hide the learning in an unobvious way so that the kids learn without even really realizing, but because they want to, not because we tell them to.
FInal Thoughts
As you can see, being a teacher is hard, and controlling a classroom or learning experience is even harder.
A good teacher is almost paradoxical, they rarely teach, and shouldn’t even need to turn up.
We should incite curiosity in our kids, through relationships we can understand what an individual child may find curious, and then we can satisfy curious minds.
But a teacher can’t exist without the curious mind, but sometimes it is inciting curiosity that is the hardest thing, rather than teaching itself or even being knowledgeable on a subject.
Hi, my name is Helena Waters and I was a teacher for 40 years before retiring last year.
During my time as a teacher I dedicated the majority of it to making classrooms as fun as possible, with educational parties, fun activities, and low cost entertainment that made the children excited about learning.
I taught children of all ages, from preschoolers to high school students. Now, with the pandemic having uprooted everything that children once knew about school and learning, I think that the need for my ideas is bigger than ever.
That is why I created School Sparks, a place in which I can write down and share all of my ideas on how to get students excited about going to school again. I hope that you’ll find some useful within a school setting, even at home too!
