Quote of the day

Your slightly bigger than the average human heart, but that's because you're a teacher.
- Aaron Bacall
(Teachers page-a-day calendar - Monday 19 January 2009)

The Newbery Medal is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. While recent winners are always great reads, don't forget classics from ten, twenty, or even fifty years ago.
1999: Holes by Louis Sachar
1989: Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices by Paul Fleischman
1979: The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
1969: The High King by Lloyd Alexander
1959: The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
(Teachers page-a-day calendar - Tuesday 20 January 2009)

When one is out of touch with oneself, one cannot touch others.
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh
(Teachers page-a-day calendar - Wednesday 21 January 2009)

When I longed to see the world,
A teacher gave me wings
And urged me always to explore
The in and out of things.
- Becky Kelly
(Teachers page-a-day calendar - Thursday 22 January 2009)

An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it.
- Bill Bernbach
(Teachers page-a-day calendar - Friday 23 January 2009)

Education is always a hot conversation topic around the water cooler. People care about it. They have opinions about it. They praise it, criticize it, and argue about it. And while others are talking about education, teachers are living it. They're where the action is.
- Robert D. Ramsey
(Teachers page-a-day calendar - Sat/Sun 24/25 January 2009)

The believing mind
believes in itself.
- Zen saying
(Zen page-a-day calendar - Thursday 4 December 2008)

The artist must summon all his energy, his sincerity, and the greatest modesty in order to shatter the old clichés that come too easily to hand while working, which can suffocate the little flower that does not come, ever, the way one expects.
- Henri Matisse
(Zen page-a-day calendar - Friday 5 December 2008)

It was fated that you would find the truth.
Now, tracing your way as if in a dream,
past where the sea meets the sky,
you slowly fade from the world in your fragile boat.
How calm are the water and the moon,
and how calm the fished and dragons at the sound of your chanting.
Always the eye watches just beyond the horizon to the guiding light of your simple lantern.
- Ch'ien Ch'i
(Zen page-a-day calendar - Saturday 6 December 2008)

It does not require many words to speak the truth.
- Chief Joseph
(Zen page-a-day calendar - Sunday 7 December 2008)

Do not attempt to become Buddha.
- Dōgen
(Zen page-a-day calendar - Monday 8 December 2008)

The infinite mind is the finite of every second.
- Zen Saying
(Zen page-a-day calendar - Tuesday 9 December 2008)

If you were to put aside what you know because of what other people told you, how much of what you know do you truly know for yourself? If you look for the origin of your thoughts, of your life, of your universe, can you find it? Can you find where this moment comes from or where it goes home to?
- John Tarrant
(Zen page-a-day calendar - Wednesday 10 December 2008)

So a try-mind is more important than any Zen master. If you say "I can," then you can do something. If you say "I cannot," the you cannot do anything. Which do you like?
- Seung Sahn
(Zen page-a-day calendar - Thursday 11 December 2008)

Learn the changes and then forget them.
- Charlie Parker
(Zen page-a-day calendar - Friday 12 December 2008)

I have learned to have very modest goals for society and myself, things like clean air, green grass, children with bright eyes, not being pushed around, useful work that suits one's abilities, plain tasty food. . . .
- Paul Goodman
(Zen page-a-day calendar - Saturday 13 December 2008)

Daowu and Jianyuan visited a house in mourning to offer their condolences. Jianyuan smacked the coffin with his fist: "Alive or dead?"
Daowu said: "I'm not saying alive and I'm not saying dead."
"Why not?" Jianyuan asked.
Daowu said: "I'm not saying, I'm not saying."
Later, on their way home, Jianyuan said: "Say something now, or I'll hit you."
"Go ahead. Even if you hit me, I'm not saying anything."
After Daowu died, Jianyuan went to Shishuang and told him the story, to which Shishuang replied: "I'm not saying alive, I'm not saying dead."
"Why not?"
"I'm not saying! I'm not saying!"
Suddenly Jianyuan had a realization.
- Zen mondo
(Zen page-a-day calendar - Sunday 14 December 2008)

I am an artist . . . It's self-evident that what that word implies is looking for something all the time without ever finding it in full. It is the opposite of saying, "I know all about it. I've already found it," As far as I'm concerned, the word means, "I am looking. I am hunting for it, I am deeply involved."
- Vincent van Gogh
(Zen page-a-day calendar - Monday 15 December 2008)

A single red berry
   has fallen
      on the frost in the garden.
- Shiki
(Zen page-a-day calendar - Tuesday 16 December 2008)

Your eyebrows will be tangled up with the ancestors, you'll see with the same eyes and hear with the same ears. Won't that be wonderful?
- Wu-men, on solving a koan
(Zen page-a-day calendar - Sunday 7 December 2008)