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What is a Teacher?

I’ll tell you: it isn’t someone who teaches you something, but someone who inspires the student to give of her best in order to discover what she already knows.

Paulo Coelho (from the Witch of Portobello)

Let us Begin...

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28 Comments CherryPie on Jan 25th 2012

28 Responses to “What is a Teacher?”

  1. Jailhouselawyer says:
    January 25, 2012 at 10:54 pm

    I agree with that. It’s not so much what you pump in but what you draw out from within.

    • CherryPie says:
      January 25, 2012 at 11:03 pm

      Yes it is all there within us we just need to look there. Some people choose not to look within, maybe it is too difficult and painful or maybe they just don’t know how to…

  2. London Caller says:
    January 25, 2012 at 11:47 pm

    Well, “Who are the students?” ;)

    Just got back from Helsinki last night.
    It was so brrrrrrrrrrilliant!

  3. Anyes - Far Away in the Sunshine says:
    January 26, 2012 at 12:19 am

    This book is drawing me in so deeply…

  4. Frida says:
    January 26, 2012 at 8:53 am

    Love that quote and the book.

  5. Claire says:
    January 26, 2012 at 11:15 am

    This lovely photo accompanied by Paul Coelho quote which says everything a good teacher should aspire to achieve. I was a teacher and hope that this is how I left some of my students, just wanting more. Great thought.

  6. jameshigham says:
    January 26, 2012 at 6:03 pm

    She, Cherie? No male students anymore? ;-)

    • CherryPie says:
      January 26, 2012 at 11:46 pm

      The quote (including the title) was from the male tutor/mentor after his female student/pupil asked the question:

      Are you a teacher?

      So yes in this instance there was only a one female student.

      PS: Your comment was rather predictable ;-)

  7. Sean Jeating says:
    January 26, 2012 at 9:10 pm

    All talk he is, our dear Senhor Coelho.
    What a babbler, what a windbag. What a blatherer, what a speechifier.
    He knows, though, how to make money from many persons innocence, or simple mindedness.
    Did anyone here read the sentence? Pure idiocy? Were Senhor Coelho a boxer, I’d say he had one fight too much.

    Yes, CherryPie, much better I do feel now. :)
    The peace of the night.

    • CherryPie says:
      January 26, 2012 at 11:57 pm

      I actually like this quote and his first book, it speaks of how nature works.

      It is sad that most people don’t understand how nature instinctively and need it explained to them.

      But they do need that explanation ;-) and this book does that, if they can understand it…

      Sweet dreams :-)

      • Sean Jeating says:
        January 27, 2012 at 12:15 am

        Ha! I like that you do answer my ‘attack’ rather with the foil than with the sabre.
        Thus, while for you I cannot understand ‘it’, and while for me Coelho is a ‘charlatan’:

        Isn’t it lovely that sometimes we can fully – oh, so fully! :) – disagree, and still we like and respect one another?

        • CherryPie says:
          January 27, 2012 at 12:38 am

          I would never attack a difference of opinion. I would miss some knowledge and an opportunity for learning…

          One of my favourite things in life is to explore differences of thoughts and opinion. Enlightened people can do that and still like and respect each other :-)

          Over time viewpoints do change one way or another, this is quite startling and enlightening in equal measures.

          It is lovely that we like and respect each other despite our differences in the details. It is how things are meant to be :-)

  8. Ginnie says:
    January 27, 2012 at 7:10 am

    Keep quoting from this book, Cherry. It may be the closest I’ll ever get to reading it!

  9. JD says:
    January 27, 2012 at 1:11 pm

    Coelho lists his influences as-
    Khalil Gibran, Henry Miller, Jorge Luis Borges, Jorge Amado

    http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/566.Paulo_Coelho

    If you think Coelho is enigmatic, you will find Borges is completely beyond ‘reason’…..
    ………………and that is no bad thing :)

  10. Claude says:
    January 27, 2012 at 2:20 pm

    Lovely photo, Cherie!

  11. ....peter says:
    January 27, 2012 at 4:45 pm

    I like your bud Cherie… a symbol of new life… your title “What is a Teacher?… i would like to answer it in my own way:-)
    My mother taught the toughest kids in grades 7 and 8 on the rough side of town during most of fourty-five years… i have two sisters who followed in her footsteps…
    Here is a tribute to her that i posted in 2010 that might interest you:
    http://petermeilleur.shutterchance.com/image/2010/10/14/mother–age-18/
    i believe that she had made a difference in many young lives during that time….peter:)

  12. Andrew says:
    January 27, 2012 at 8:22 pm

    Well it doesn’t work that way when you are teaching quantum chemistry to an introductory class, because I just know for sure that the fine details of atomic and molecular orbitals and orbital hybridisation are not really in those waiting minds already.

    I do manage to put them in, but often only briefly.

    • CherryPie says:
      January 28, 2012 at 12:54 am

      I know you are a good teacher. Your students will get the message, if they are up to it…

      Students (who want to learn) don’t always fully understand what the teacher is telling them. But they know the teacher is right and want to explore the lessons further ;-)

  13. Mickie Brown says:
    January 29, 2012 at 3:30 am

    Lovely photo, Cherie–I like the background. Being a teacher, I really love the quote. Have a nice Sunday. Mickie ;)