In August 1979, I walked through these doors at Osceola Middle School to begin my career as a teacher, and this is the place where my husband will complete his final year as an educator.
Much has changed in education during this time, but much is still the same. As we begin another year, let us be inspired, motivated, and entertained by the words of others about teaching and education…one quote for every year of my teaching career.

A child without education is like a bird without wings. ~Tibetan proverb
A teacher’s job is to take a bunch of live wires and see that they are well-grounded. ~D. Martin
A mind when stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions. ~Author Unknown
The best way to predict your future is to create it. ~Abraham Lincoln
Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think. ~Albert Einstein
Modern cynics and skeptics…see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those whom they entrust their plumbing. ~John F. Kennedy
In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day’s work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe twenty years. ~Jacques Barzen
Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. ~John Dewey
Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel. ~Socrates
It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. ~Albert Einstein
A good teacher is a master of simplification and an enemy of simplistic. ~Louis A. Berman
We expect teachers to handle teenage pregnancy, substance abuse, and the failings of the family. Then we expect them to educate our children. ~John Sculley
Teaching is more than imparting knowledge, it is inspiring change. Learning is more than absorbing facts, it is acquiring understanding.~William Arthur Ward
The principal goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done. ~Jean Piaget
The task of the modern educator is not to cut down the jungle but to water the desert. ~C.S. Lewis
Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world. ~Nelson Mandela
Discover wildlife: be a teacher! ~Author Unknown
What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul. ~Joseph Addison
Education breeds confidence. Confidence breeds hope. Hope breeds peace. ~Confucius
Who dares to teach must never cease to learn. ~John Cotton Dana
The secret of teaching is to appear to have known all your life what you just learned this morning. ~Author Unknown
Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom. ~George Washington Carver
The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery. ~Mark Van Doren

Teach the children so it will not be necessary to teach the adults. ~Abraham Lincoln
Once you master the art of facing a room full of teenagers and come out alive, you can do anything. ~Author Unknown
Everyone is in awe of a lion tamer in a cage with half a dozen lions. Everyone but a kindergarten teacher. ~Author Unknown
The secret in education lies in respecting the student. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
When you learn, teach. When you get, give. ~Maya Angelou
You are never too old to set another goal or dream another dream. ~C.S. Lewis
Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose. ~Bill Gates
Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers. ~Josef Albers
Before any great things are accomplished, a memorable change must be made in the system of education…to raise the lower ranks of society nearer to the higher. ~John Adams
I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think. ~Socrates
Don’t just teach your kids to read, teach them to question what they read. Teach them to question everything! ~George Carlin
I am not a teacher, but an awakener. ~Robert Frost
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