Motivational Quotes for Teachers

These motivational quotes for teachers are for when you need help focusing on what’s important in the classroom.

Teaching is hard work. It’s often exhausting and overwhelming.

And when you’re dealing with children and teenagers, who are frequently irrational, distracted and annoying, it can also feel helluva unrewarding.

These motivational quotes for teachers are designed to help you reflect on the role of the teacher, the conditions in which students thrive, and the importance of YOU.

Because, and I say this with all the love in my heart, if you’re no longer feeling any joy from the job, then it’s time to look for a new job.

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Motivational quotes for teachers

A teacher who loves learning earns the right and the ability to help others learn. – Ruth Beechick

We try to give [students] affection, confidence and guidance, more or less in that order, because experience has shown us that those are their most immediate needs. – E.R. Braithwaite

The difference between a beginning teacher and an experienced one is that the beginning teacher asks, “How am I doing?” and the experienced teacher asks, How are the children doing? – Esme Raji Codell

I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn. – Albert Einstein

Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results. – John Dewey

Never compare one student’s test score to another’s. Always measure a child’s progress against her past performance. There will always be a better reader, mathematician, or baseball player. Our goal is to help each student become as special as she can be as an individual–not to be more special than the kid sitting next to her. – Rafe Esquith

If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn. – Ignacio Estrada

Bright and well-behaved students can be taught anywhere and by anyone, but real success is when a teacher is able to engage the naughtiest and the least interested student unconditionally in the classroom. – Kavita Bhupta Ghosh

The best teaching can be done only when there is a direct individual relationship between a student and a good teacher—a situation in which the student discusses the ideas, thinks about the things, and talks about the things. It’s impossible to learn very much by simply sitting in a lecture, or even by simply doing problems that are assigned. – Richard Feynman

Good teaching is like a vehicle that runs on four wheels of conceptual efficacy, instinctual guidance, imagination and innovation. – Kavita Bhupta Ghosh

I’ve come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It’s my personal approach that creates the climate. It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized. – Haim Ginott

This is the point of being a teacher. A glimmer of hope where you thought it didn’t exist. –Matt Haig

A teacher is only as effective as his ability to understand where his student is. – Abraham Hicks

Stand aside for a while and leave room for learning, observe carefully what children do, and then, if you have understood well, perhaps teaching will be different from before. – Loris Malaguzzi

Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.- Margaret Mead

What we learn with pleasure, we never forget. – Alfred Mercer

It’s the teacher that makes the difference, not the classroom. – Michael Morpurgo

Never discourage anyone…who continually makes progress, no matter how slow. – Plato

“Do they listen?”
He held up a finger. “Every year one does,” he said, grinning. “But that one makes it worthwhile. Even Jesus only did twelve. I try to get one a year.” – Abraham Verghese

Great teachers have high expectations for their students, but higher expectations for themselves. – Todd Whitaker

Teaching is not an easy job. I know: I taught for 20 years.

These motivational quotes for teachers are for when you feel like you just need that extra something to get you through the door.

(If you’re struggling with your mindset, then check out these growth mindset quotes, or these teacher affirmations).

Which motivational teacher quote is your favorite? Let me know in the comments!

P.S Mine is Verghese’s. It reminds me that I don’t have to make a difference to all my classes or even a whole class. One is enough to change a life.

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