(This monograph was written twenty-nine years ago. A few of the issues have changed, many have not. It is included here in its original unedited form.)

If you expect to get thanked, stay out of the business.

If you enjoy long hours spent watching other people expand, you came to the right place.

You will really begin to know that you have made a difference when those around you are really excited about their lives.

If you don’t enjoy walking into your classroom, what makes you think anyone else will?

Do you really know how people learn?

A willingness to learn is the mark of a great teacher.

Discipline is a function of being sure that you mean what you say.

Do you respond well to threats?

If there were no building, no pay, no administration, no summer vacation, would you still want to teach?

Are you willing to tell your students the truth?

There is a lot of agreement that teaching is a tough job. So what?

Great teachers think that what they do is exciting, really exciting.

Anything anyone ever told you about anyone in your classroom is absolutely irrelevant in terms of what you will be able to accomplish with them.

There are as many ways to learn as there are students.

Students “need to know” something when they need to know it. Perhaps that accounts for the fact that they don’t always want to hear what you have to say.

Children who have been beaten or abused need to be loved in order to hear the things you have to say.

What does maturity look like anyway?

The young person who wants to learn will learn in spite of you.

Teachers are the most grossly underpaid employees in our society, except for the custodians who get to clean up after them.

Facts, in and of themselves, are irrelevant. Knowing that you have the ability to learn is critical.

Test scores are about as significant as the survival rate of fruit flies.

Are you willing to be judged on the basis of how your students perform?

The teaching technique that works for you is the one that works for you.

Name one thing you learned that you really didn’t want to know.

How it is that all the great teachers you remember didn’t all do things the same way?

Students need to get that their education is not your responsibility.

If you reach 20 students a year and each one of them lives forty years and has contact with three different people a day, you will have had an influence on 876,000 people for each year you teach.

20 X 3 X 365 X 40 = 876,000

– one year of teaching

876,000 X 20 – 17,520,000

An interesting responsibility.

There is only one person who will ever really know if you have been a great teacher.

Any compassion you have for less than superior work on your part will perpetuate mediocrity.

You may be the only person in a young person’s life who gave a damn.

What are you committed to anyway?

Enthusiasm is the major ingredient in getting things done.

How often do you mention love in your classroom?

What do you think would happen if you told your students you didn’t know?

There is no scarcity of babysitters.

Genius is born out of inspiration.

If you could communicate only one thing to your students, what would it be?

Who you are contributes to kids. If you hold yourself as not worth much, guess what they get?

Teachers and administrators need to acknowledge the fact that students allow them to do what they say they love to do.

If you knew that you could be the successful President of General Motors, would you still want to teach? If the answer is no, get out now.

Anyone who uses school work as a punishment ought to be able to see that what they have just done is kill a part of a student’s desire to learn.

How is it that the majority of kids turn off on school before they reach the sixth grade?

Being a teacher will require “guts” beyond anything you have ever known. Each day will bring a challenge that tests who you really are.