TELLING THE TRUTH

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —

Emily Dickinson in Karen Swallow Prioer, You Have a Calling, p.95.

A SINGLE TEACHER'S LEGACY

'She had more children than any of her friends, and been loved and respected, fawned over and feared. She'd taught thousands of young people to read and think, and they had gone on to change the world and would continue to long after she was dust.' 

Stewart O'Nan, Wish You Were Here, p.315. 

SELF-ESTEEM

'When in comes to the gaining of genuine confidence and genuine self-respect, even the supposed default humans needs a surprising amount of encouragement. What they need, life everyone else, is a) one thing to be good at, and b) one person to notice.

With me that starts at school.

It starts with Mrs Slater.' 

Robert Webb, How Not to be a Boy, p.113. 

EXPLAINING DIFFICULT THINGS

'Anyone who has ever tried to present a rather abstract scientific subject in a popular manner knows the great difficulties of such an attempt. Either he succeeds in being intelligible by concealing the core of the problem and by offering the to the reader only superficial aspects or vague allusions, thus deceiving the reader by arousing in him the deceptive illusion of comprehension; or else he gives an expert account of the problem, but in such a fashion that the untrained reader is unable to follow the exposition and becomes discouraged from reading any further.'

Albert Einstein in Fred Sanders, The Triune God, p.182. 

GETTING TO KNOW THE NEIGHBOURS

'There is no more intimate way of getting to know your neighbours than teaching their children.' 

Roger Deakin, Wildwood: A Journey Through Trees, p.4.

GOOD TEACHERS

'The satisfied never make good teachers. It isn't the mastery of truth, but a relentless longing for it that qualifies those who become trusted guides for others. Mark it down as a rule: the desert alone possesses the secret knowledge of water.' 

Belden C Lane, Ravished by Beauty: The Surprising Legacy of Reformed Spirituality, p.1. 

GOOD TEACHERS

'Good teachers are constantly fighting against knowingness by asking questions, creating difficulties, raising perplexities.'

Mark Ednundson, Why Teach?  p.182.

TEACHING

'All good teaching entails some kidnapping; there's a touch of malice involved.'

Mark Edmundson, Why Teach?  p.133.

GOOD TEACHERS

'Good teachers make it possible for people to change their positions without shame.' 

Rosario Champagne Butterfield, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, p.14.  

PREACHING VS. TEACHING

'If teaching is like the signpost which explains clearly to us where we ought to go and how to go there, preaching is like the friendly but firm shove from behind to get us started on actually going there and to keep us moving. We must teach: exhortation without teaching is like someone giving me a shove without explaining why. It is an act verbal aggression, an invasion of my personal space, a ranting and a raving without explaining to me why I need to do what the soap box warrior shouts that I must do. We must teach. If we do not teach with patience and clarity, there is no point preaching. But we must not stop with teaching. It is a fine thing patiently explaining to me so that I will understand. But if you love me you will press home to me with all the force you can my need to act on what I now understand, and to act on it today.'

Christopher Ash, The Priority of Preaching, p.65.

PREACHING VS. TEACHING

'For some time we have emphasises the centrality of "teaching the Bible" in pastoral ministry. That was good because it stopped us being side-tracked onto teaching our systematic theology or our experience, or just setting out strategic thinking or baptising the wisdom of the world with a religious veneer. We were reminded that we were leading our churches by teaching the Bible. But I fear that we have so emphasised "teaching the Bible" that we rest happy with "teaching the Bible". But preaching the Bible is more important than teaching the Bible, let alone simply explaining the Bible. Many of us have been introduced as a visiting speaker with the words, "Now so and so will explain the Bible/ teach the Bible." When that happens to me I want to interrupt and say, "Yes, I hope to explain and teach it. But I hope also to preach it, and that is not the same."'

Christopher Ash, The Priority of Preaching, p.48.

WORDS

'It is a good exercise to try for once in a way to express any opinion one holds in words of one syllable. If you say "the social utility of the indeterminate sentence is recognised by all criminologists as a part of our sociological evolution towards a more humane and scientific view of punishment," you can go on talking like that for hours with hardly a movement of the grey matter inside your skull. But if you begin "I wish Jones to go to gaol and Brown to say when Jones shall come out," you will discover, with a thrill of horror, that you are obliged to think. The long words are not the hard words, it is the short words that are hard.'

GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy, p.91.