BS: Schoolmaster Quotes

Subject: SCHOOLMASTER QUOTES
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 03:23 AM

The average schoolmaster is and always must be essentially an ass, for how can one imagine an intelligent man engaging in so puerile an avocation.H. L. Mencken
Society is like a schoolmaster who estimates boys according to their conformity to a standard that is easiest for running a school.
Henry Sidgwick

Subject: RE: SCHOOLMASTER QUOTES
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 03:24 AM

Sorry this should be below the line, could a mudelf oblige

Subject: RE: SCHOOLMASTER QUOTES
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 04:00 AM

Those who can - do.
Those who can't - teach.
Those who can't teach - become school inspectors.

Robin

Subject: RE: SCHOOLMASTER QUOTES
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 04:52 AM

I hear the echoes of a child that did not fit into a ready made 'academic' or 'career' box! Takes one to know one.

Subject: RE: SCHOOLMASTER QUOTES
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 05:33 AM

"Doh! You silly little boy! ... I - I - I - Corwumph!"

Subject: RE: SCHOOLMASTER QUOTES
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 06:01 AM

If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?

Subject: RE: SCHOOLMASTER QUOTES
From: Raggytash
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 06:29 AM

If you can read this thank a teacher.

This smacks of someone who "went to the university of life"

Subject: RE: SCHOOLMASTER QUOTES
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 08:10 AM

If you can read this thank a teacher.

But the 'teacher' need not be employed as a teacher. The teacher could just be one of your parents.

Subject: RE: SCHOOLMASTER QUOTES
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 08:26 AM

Exactly, Nigel.
I could read before I went to school.
We had to suffer teachers that threw chalk, blackboard rubbers, and at my Grammar School a teacher who used to go off on racist rants about wily oriental gentlemen, another teacher who fell asleep during lessons,ETC
Another one who refused to explain Algebra, just saying your thick if you do not understand. yes werent they great?

Subject: RE: SCHOOLMASTER QUOTES
From: Senoufou
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 08:39 AM

Excuse me,I've been a schoolteacher all my working life. I AM NOT AN ASS thank you very much. And the teachers I had as a pupil were all excellent. I was very fond of them all, 'Infant', 'Junior' and 'Grammar'.
Stop Teacher Bashing please.

Subject: RE: SCHOOLMASTER QUOTES
From: r.padgett
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 09:13 AM

Mr Pilkington ~ physics had quotations:

"Yea gods and little fishes"

"Blood and sweat"

Ray

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: Raggytash
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 09:24 AM

"But the 'teacher' need not be employed as a teacher. The teacher could just be one of your parents."

Yes Nigel they could (in fact my Mother was a teacher) but who teaches the parent.



I somehow expected more from you Nigel.

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 10:06 AM

"But the 'teacher' need not be employed as a teacher. The teacher could just be one of your parents."
Yes Nigel they could (in fact my Mother was a teacher) but who teaches the parent.
I somehow expected more from you Nigel.

Nice try. I didn't expect more from you.
If anything can only be taught by a teacher, or (as you say) by someone who was taught by a teacher, then ultimately no-one will ever have been taught anything, as there must be someone back at the beginning who learnt for themselves. If that is the case, there can still be those who learn for themselves.
Teachers, as a profession, help to standardise what is being learnt, with all the possibilities that includes for indoctrination, or continuance of error.

Some teachers are excellent, and I have been fortunate in being taught by some. But they are not all of the same quality.

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: meself
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 10:10 AM

So ... what is the point of this thread? We can all remember teachers who were less than stellar and we can all remember times when our parents were unfair, so ... ?

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: Raggytash
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 10:19 AM

There have been schools in England since at least 597AD. Before that schools existed in ancient Rome which were based on schools in ancient Greece which were the basis of schools in England.

Just how far do you want to go back to find who initially learnt for themselves.

I am sure there are people who are quite capable of self education but in order to do that they have to have the basics of "the 3 R's" which they probably learnt from a teacher.

I would suggest you are being disingenuous.

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 10:32 AM

Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.
Oscar Wilde

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 10:38 AM

Dick - I'll give this latest self indulgent thread of yours
the same comment I got from my favourite English teacher,
when I submitted a deliberately provocative homework composition..

"Frivolous Drivel...!!!"


That teacher was my role model for withering sarcasm..

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 11:54 AM

Seeking the quotes if thread name?

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: Senoufou
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 12:05 PM

I too could read and write well by the age of about four. I seemed to have more or less taught myself. My mother took me to meet the Headmistress of the 'Infant' school, which normally accepted pupils from the age of five. She heard me read, saw me write, and I did some 'sums'(bit of a performing poodle, but I loved it!)
I was allowed to start school with others a year older.
My wonderful teachers always found material suitable for my ability,and 'stretched' me. After a few weeks, I was moved up to join a class two years older than me.
I'm relating this to show how wonderful all my teachers were in accommodating my weird abilities.
Junior school was also excellent.
One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is discipline. All teachers in those days were strict and had firm control of a class. Most important.
Some of my colleagues when I became a teacher found class-control difficult/impossible. This is a major fault in a teacher.
From various comedies on TV I remember:-
"It's your time you're wasting."
"You absolute CLOT!"
"I have eyes in the back of my head." (when writing on the blackboard)
"It looks as if a fly fell in the inkwell and walked across your exercise book."

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 12:38 PM

i remember a friend of mine who was left handed , this was before the days of fountain pens, the imk wells were on the right hand side of the desk and the pupil had to dip the nib into the hole and draw it out
well if you are left handed [or as the dictionary describes them sinister] it then becomes impossible to do clean tidy writing, because the ink spills across the page .
the stupid schoolmaster and stupid headmaster would not let the child use a fountain pen or biro.. an example of the prevalent sticking to rules, of schollmasters of my acquaintance , regardless of how it interfered with a left handed childs abilty to do tidy work.

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 12:52 PM

Dick - what's prompted your nostalgic regression to the schoolboy dark ages
of Jimmy Edwards "Whack-O!"...???

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 01:26 PM

I was a Year 7 form teacher in my probationary year. We called it "the first year" in those days. I had to collect individual teachers' subject reports and copy them on to a sort of master report. The woodwork teacher, a very arrogant and unpleasant man whose wife was the equally unpleasant school secretary (I used to amuse myself by imagining what they were like when having sex), had written for one little lad's report "This boy knows nothing about anything." That was it, the whole thing. I sent it back to him asking him to rewrite it, pointing out that he was really only able to comment about the lad's woodwork lesson exploits. He was furious and went straight to the headmaster, who ruled in my favour, amazing considering that said headmaster lived in mortal fear of the dragon-like school secretary.... :-)

The two best excuse notes I got from parents that year were a long sob-story written on two sides of paper explaining that her son hadn't done his homework because his pet dog has accidentally hung itself on the railings, and the other which informed me that Paul couldn't come to school yesterday with his stomach...

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: Senoufou
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 01:41 PM

Oh those 'excuses' Steve! Hee hee.
I often had a note handed to me saying "She can't come to school today because she's under the doctor"
The worst one was when I'd just arrived to teach in a rather poor district of Glasgow from 'posh' Edinburgh. A rather dishevelled lady came to my door and said,"Miss (pronounced 'muss') see ma sunn, he's no coming tae skewl the day, he's peely-wally and aye lyin'on the flair greetin'"
I blinked and smiled weakly. Not the least idea what she meant!

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 04:21 AM

Anyone who teaches anything to anyone is by definition a teacher, Nigel. I would have thought you were pedantic enough to notice that one.

As to the puerile quotes about schoolmasters, they are at best, like any other stereotyping, lazy attempts at humour. At worse they demonise a profession that is difficult and, at times as this thread shows, thankless.

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 04:43 AM

Dave, to point out as I have done examples of bad teaching is not stereo typing, to describe the quote of Oscar Wilde as puerile is merely a matter of opinion, perhaps we can continue to discuss good and bad schoolmasters, sensibly
Dave the subject is schoolmasters , that is people that teach IN SCHOOLS, it was schoolmaster quotes not teachers ,pay attantion in class or you might be sent to the dunces corner, which was a frequent occurence for some schoolchildren who were educated in schools by schoolmasters. THAT WAS ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF BAD TEACHING CHILDREN IN SCHOOL BEING SENT TO THE DUNCES CORNER AND HAVING TO WEAR A HAT WITH D ON IT , I SAW THAT HAPPEN IN MY SCHOOL

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 05:14 AM

Anyone who teaches anything to anyone is by definition a teacher, Nigel. I would have thought you were pedantic enough to notice that one.
I had already made that point: But the 'teacher' need not be employed as a teacher. The teacher could just be one of your parents.
I was responding to the slogan If you can read this thank a teacher. which is a self-promotion slogan used by the teaching profession.

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: Raggytash
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 06:01 AM

I question whether "if you can read this thank a teacher" is a self-promotion slogan.

I would suggest that for most people (not all people **) it is merely a fact.



** For the benefit of the pedants amongst us.

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 06:05 AM

I heard of a school just down the road from mine in Walthamstow which had a teacher who took the "dunce's corner" concept a step further. He had a dustbin in the corner, and, if you were naughty, you'd be made to stand in it. His reasoning to the class was that bad behaviour was rubbish, and, well, what do we do with our rubbish...?

I must say, I did manage at times to defuse a situation in which a pupil was giving me lip by roaring in his face "How DARE you open your mouth when you're speaking to me, boy!"

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 06:46 AM

well, an increasing number of people are turning to home education, that is a fact#.
# please note pedants and ex schoolmasters. i am stating a fact not uneqivocal approval, there are advantages and disadvanteages to both systems,
I had the interesting experience of meeting and being interviewed by AS NEILL Summerhill school. But that is another story

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: DMcG
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 07:06 AM

Several of my teachers had catchphrases that they seemed to enjoy saying for the fun of it. Neither saying really represents how well they could teach.

"You lie like a cheap Japanese wristwatch."

- I think the quality of Japanese product has rather improved since then!

A teacher always seemed to 0

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: Senoufou
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 07:16 AM

Peter Kay is a scream with his stories about his schooldays (educated by nuns apparently) You can find lots of his hilarious stand-ups about it on Youtube. His teachers sounded as daft as a brush to me!

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 07:28 AM

I have a selection of pens and a stash of post-it notes bearing the "thank a teacher" slogan. Bearing in mind how the teaching profession has been serially reviled by the right-wing press and by various governments, and how it has endured an ignorant and judgemental inspectorate for over three decades, and how it's been shatupon from on high by dint of crushing and pointless bureaucracy, spending cuts, crumbling schools, ever bigger classes and pay freezes, that modest little slogan, in m'humble, is no more than a tiny and bitterness-free riposte to all that. I've personally endured many a humdrum teacher in my time, but, thanks to a handful of inspired and inspiring ones, I've never lost my sense of curiosity and my enthusiasm for learning. I bow in awe before thee, Mr Unsworth, Dr Kery* Dalby and Dr Kenny Alvin!

*He was always Kery, though his full first name was Dunkery, as he was born within sight of Dunkery Beacon on Exmoor, a place I know well. My lovely father-in-law is scattered on top!

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 08:09 AM

My wife has dedicated more than three decades of her working life
to giving infants from deprived backgrounds
the best enabling early learning foundation
to improves their future learning potential..

This is despite the disadvantages of their social environment,
extent of addictions, mental illness, and criminality within families,
and too frequent low aspirational poor parental skills.

Teachers like my wife are of far more value to our society
than any number of disgruntled opinionated self-important folk singers...!!!

.. and now she is being forced by the tory govt
to risk her and my life
working on the frontline in school without adequate PPE
throughout the pandemic,
while all the teacher hating malcontents
sit on their arses infesting social media with their poisonous opinions...

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: DMcG
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 10:04 AM

"A teacher always seemed to 0"

Not sure what happened there. It was supposed to say

A teacher who was very often ill would frequently announce his entrance by saying "I wish you had my cold!"

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 10:22 AM

are there any teacher hating malcontents on this forum,
i mentioned some Bad Schoolmasters , all things i mentioned are based on my experience[ FROM THE PAST].
I also know and knew some dedicated and good teachers, SOME OF WHOM GA VE UP TEACHING IN SCHOOLS BECAUSE OF THE CONSTRAINTS OF THE NATIONAL CURRICULUM.
PFR teachers are not the only people who are risking their lives in the pandemic, do not forget nurses and healthcare workers, Police, ambulance drivers

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 10:31 AM

Dick - give it a rest.

You provided no context or reason whatsoever for starting this pointlessly self indulgent thread.

F@ck knows what was GOING ON inside your head.???

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: Jeri
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 10:40 AM

I wish some teachers had been better at teaching English. You know: sentence structure, capitalization, and stuff like that.

Is this thread not the most stupid attempt at a troll we've seen for a while? You're looking for a fight where there is none.

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: Senoufou
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 10:45 AM

I agree Jeri,a rather silly attempt at Teacher Bashing. Let's ignore it shall we, and stop posting? Trolls don't like that!

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 11:11 AM

Dick. It was not me who started using the term teacher but you were happy to continue doing so by quoting the lazy stereotyping used by Oscar Wilde, "Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching."

See, I was paying attention. Were you? :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: Raggytash
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 12:33 PM

I always thought the use of capital letters (where not required) was the equivalent of shouting when using net forums.

Is this so?

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 12:34 PM

If you are teaching North American English it is capitalization, if you are teaching Britsh English it is capitalisation.
Capitalization (North American English) or capitalisation (British English).

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 12:46 PM

Period and comma: In British English, the period and comma are placed outside quotation marks. However, if the punctuation mark is a part of the quote itself, then the quotation mark is placed after the period or comma. In American English, the period and comma are always placed inside quotation marks.

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 12:47 PM

You can use either s or z in such words to your heart's content in the UK. America is a little more picky. Bottom line, a Brit's use of the z is unobjectionable. The fact is that the use of z predates any use of s in such words in British English by a couple of hundred years. I trust that I've gotten my point across... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 01:00 PM

We don't have periods this end. We have full stops. Any rules about where they go apropos of speech marks are applied very inconsistently all over the place. To me, that means that the rules don't matter much. It's what people do that matters more. You get the same argument about things such as "irregardless" and "begging the question." What starts as misuse morphs into standard English so you might as well not quibble. Just don't come around here with your bloody "prior to" or "albeit," that's all. Grr...

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 01:41 PM

Senoufou, lying on the floor green?

In the US there is a stress on peers over education. Smart kids aren't allowed to skip grades, in case in high school they won't get their learner's permit when their friends do. Sigh. No wonder we are where we are.

And this isn't new. Back in the early 60's mom was told to get a tv so my sister would have something to talk about with her peer group. One of the main reasons we moved overseas and went to French schools...

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 01:41 PM

No, groaning. Not green. New guess.

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: Senoufou
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 01:49 PM

Mrrzy, 'greeting' means 'crying' or 'weeping' up in Scotland.
Full translation: "Miss, about my son: He won't be coming to school today, he's not feeling well. He's always lying on the floor crying."
I was as puzzled as you during my first few weeks of teaching in Glasgow, but soon I started to speak 'Broad Glasgae' myself and had quite a strong accent.
When I eventually took up a post down in Norfolk, everyone found my accent hilarious. I soon learned to speak 'Broad Norfolk' (and still do a lot of the time!)

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: Jos
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 02:49 PM

As for Steve's 'your bloody "prior to" or "albeit,"' (with the comma deliberately placed inside the inverted commas?), I quite like 'albeit' and I don't mind 'prior to'.
What I HATE is 'post' used instead of 'after'. I am quite happy with 'postwar', 'postprandial' (it means 'after dinner') and 'post-pandemic' but NOT 'post the pandemic'.

(and yes, I WAS shouting)

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: Raggytash
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 02:56 PM

I think we understand using capitals for one word in order to emphasis that particular word.

I believe that to be an acceptable nuance.

What I believe to be unacceptable is the use of capital letters to name a thread or the use of capitals to construct a whole sentence.

I, in my ignorance at the time, was corrected about this some years ago.

I am open to correction if this is not the case.

Subject: RE: BS: Schoolmaster Quotes
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Nov 20 - 03:53 PM

Well, Jos, my favourite pretentious Latinism is "post hoc ergo propter hoc," which refers to that well-known logical fallacy that says that something that happened after an event must have happened because of that event.

"Prior to" can ALWAYS be replaced with good old "before." "Albeit" (which almost died out, deservedly, over a hundred years ago but which has undergone a puzzling renaissance in recent years) can ALWAYS be replaced with good old "though" or "although." See, you've got ME shouting now...