18 Inspirational Quotes To Help Teachers Get Their Fire Back.

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It doesn’t matter who you are or where you are from, we could all use a little inspiration now and then. Especially in the emotionally demanding job of education, where we can sometimes let a little too much negativity creep into our lives. It doesn’t matter if you’re a teacher, a teacher-aide, a professor, a mentor or a tutor. Working in the business of shaping minds and changing lives is challenging.

Every now and then we can let the enormous challenge of educating a generation weigh us down a little. This is why we need to do our best and remind each other why we got into the business in the first place.

So here are 18 inspirational quotes to get you energised and ready to go, to get that special shine back into your eyes.

1.“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”

We all must keeping moving, keep working hard everyday, otherwise if you’re not moving forward you’re moving backwards. Persistence and perseverance are two of the most important skills to posses. Getting up each day and putting one foot in front of the other is the easiest way to make progress in this world.

2.“Even a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.”

A wonderful quote from the Chinese philosopher Laozi. Every journey big or small has a starting point. We all must start somewhere. Sure our natural talents, our natural abilities or our previous life experience means we may start a little further down the line than others but after that the equation couldn’t be more simple. Just take one step at a time.

3.“Life isn’t about getting and having, it’s about giving and being.””

You’ll definitely agree we all need to spend more of our time giving. As a teacher or someone working in education generally giving is a major part of what we do and who we are. This is something we definitely need to share with the world a little more. Especially with our students and learners. Having more and more people in the world committed to giving and being, the world would be a infinitely better place.

4. “We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained”

Not spending your life following your passion is almost unforgivable. Obviously, discovering your passion is an important first step. As teachers and educators we are lucky enough to be living and chasing our dreams, but not everyone in the world does. This is something we must be committed to sharing with our students and learners, and with the world in general. Finding your passion and chasing it no matter what.

5. “The difference between a successful person and others is not lack of strength not a lack of knowledge but rather a lack of will.”

Commitment, dedication, persistence and perseverance. Four of the most important words. To be successful as an educator will require these for things. Some lessons won’t go our way, some days won’t go our way and some years won’t go our way. But with these four words: commitment, dedication, persistence and perseverance you’ll have no choice but to eventually be successful. Teaching our kids and our students this is also hugely important. For with these four words they can achieve anything the set their mind to.

6. “Wherever you go, go with all your heart.”

Somehow our heart already knows what we really want. Follow it until the very end. As a teacher or an educator, or anyone who has committed to something bigger than themselves would intuitively know this. Doing something with all your heart is the only way to operate. The struggle is doing it day in and day out. The struggle is doing on when no one is looking. The struggle is doing it even with the smallest and most meaningless takes. And you will fail. As long try to do everything with all your heart, you’ll be in a much better place at the end of the day.

7. “Don’t worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.”

I can’t stress this enough, don’t worry about failing. It is that simple, as soon as you stop worrying about failing your potential becomes limitless. This is something the world needs to understand, failing should be celebrated and even rewarded. Because people have failed it means they have tried something new. With people trying new things, there is no such thing as progress.

8. “The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”

Hard work and perseverance pays off. There is no simple way around it. To achieve in anything great in any situation, in any context, the easiest way to do it is hard work. To move a mountain you start with a single stone, to walk a thousand miles you start with a single step. And just keep going. Don’t stop. That’s it.

9. “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”

Creativity is like a muscle, the more you use it the stronger it gets. Just like anything really, the more your use it, the stronger it gets. The more you do something the better you get. In a world where the future will rely on original ideas to solve massive global problems teaching and learning creativity needs to be more front and center. At our schools, universities and workplaces.

10.“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires”.

Teaching for me is so much more than just imparting knowledge.Information and knowledge is everywhere and it’s free. Information in no longer locked up in people’s heads or hidden in books, it is literally at everyone’s fingertips. If you have a laptop, an internet connection and a curious mind your potential is limitless. As teacher’s role is now about inspiring curiosity.

11.“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.”

This is a great quote to remind us all what education is all about. Education is all about bringing forth people’s inner talents to prepare them for the world. To prepare them for life. It’s not about testing the life out of the students so they lose all their natural curiosity and love for learning. When students see they are learning something that is directly relevant to them and they can see how it is going to help their lives they are all in. We need to do a better job of making education about life and stop making life all about getting educated.

12.“A mind when stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions.”

A common saying is you don’t know what you don’t know. How can someone aspire to great things if they don’t know they exist is beyond me. If we are to achieve or if our students are to achieve there is a few things that need to happen. First we need to know what’s possible. For some people that’s enough, if you know someone else can achieve it then we can achieve it ourselves as well. But this is pretty uncommon, most people need to see that it’s probable as well. That someone just like them has achieve great things. When they see, they believe, and when they believe is when there mind is stretched and changed forever.

13.“Education is not filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.”

We all know from our own experience in the education system, whether it be studying or working. Sometimes it would just feel like we were cramming stuff just for the sake of it. Only to regurgitate it late, then completely forget it. When this became the model for education I have no idea. What I do know is that real education is not filling someone up with information but bring something out from inside them. Inspiring them to believe in themselves, inspiring their curiosity and inspiring a endless hunger for self-improvement. This is what real educations is all about.

Simply filling people’s heads with knowledge is extremely limited. For the teacher and the student. The student’s overall potential is limited to their recall of information. And the teacher’s success is ultimately attached to the students success. So both are clearly limited. Whereas when the teacher shows the student how to think, critically, creatively, openly, and decisively the possibilities are endless. It’s almost like the old give a man a fish or teach a man to fish, story. Tell a man a fact her learns for a day, teach a man how to acquire his own facts he learns for a lifetime.

15.“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character — that is the goal of true education.”

The function of education should be to create better people. Being able to think and being able to love are two very important components of making better people. Let’s break this down a little further. Creating people that can think for themselves empowers that person forever. It empowers humanity as well. Living in the information age, having people that can critically assess the relevance and integrity of information is almost essential for survival. And having someone who can think creatively, enables them to bring new ideas together in unique ways to hopefully solve problems in a new and better way. Now teaching people how to love is more about teaching people how to be human more than anything else. Teaching people how to be passionate, caring, understanding and empathetic. Teaching people self-respect and pride as well all come under the we wide banner of teaching people how to love — how to be human.

16.“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.”

The problems that face the 21st century are not only going to be completely unique to the 21st century but is the first time we have to solve truly global problems. So, our education system which was constructed 200 years ago for a world that looks completely different to now is supposed to prepare students to be a part of this global problem solving mission. The problem is we are trying to meet new the known needs of the future by doing the same thing we have done in the past. We need to create generations of students that are creative and original thinkers.

17.“The secret in education lies in respecting the student.”

This is such a powerful quote from Waldo Emerson. For decades teaching has been a power game. The teachers are the power players holding the power over the students. The students would need to do as they are told or else. Remnants of this ancient system still exist, students still call their teachers by their last name, as a sign of respect. Ridiculous. The secret to educations is not only respecting the students but having an unwavering faith in their abilities.

18.“Life has two rules: #1 Never quit, #2 Always remember rule #1.”

Simple.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read these quotes which I use to help get me out of bed in the morning. It doesn’t matter what industry you are in we are all trying to make a difference. And from time to time we can all lose focus, we can all forget the true reason behind why we do what we do. With a bit of luck some of these quotes and stories would have re-ignited your fire inside you. And you can use these quotes to get you out of bed and get you going.

Originally published at elitementoring.co on April 8, 2016. Remember to check out all our post over at Elitementoring.co (click here)