Phillip Done

“The main reason I became a teacher is that I like being the first one to introduce kids to words and music and people and numbers and concepts and idea that they have never heard about or thought about before. I like being the first one to tell them about Long John Silver and negative numbers and Beethoven and alliteration and "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning" and similes and right angles and Ebenezer Scrooge. . . Just think about what you know today. You read. You write. You work with numbers. You solve problems. We take all these things for granted. But of course you haven't always read. You haven't always known how to write. You weren't born knowing how to subtract 199 from 600. Someone showed you. There was a moment when you moved from not knowing to knowing, from not understanding to understanding. That's why I became a teacher.”
― Phillip Done, 32 Third Graders and One Class Bunny: Life Lessons from Teaching

“Teachers are Peter Pans in a way. It’s so easy to lose track of time. You forget that you’re getting older, because they’re always eight years old. You teach in the same classroom year after year. You wear the same tie. You tell the same jokes. Everything is always the same.”
― Phillip Done, 32 Third Graders and One Class Bunny: Life Lessons from Teaching