Married couples who quarrel bitterly every day may really need each other as deeply as those who appear to be desperately in love.
Why administrators are respected and schoolteachers are not: An administrator is paid a lot for doing very little, while a teacher is paid very little for doing a lot.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the disparity in respect and compensation between school administrators and teachers.
Edward Abbey's quote draws attention to the contrasting levels of respect afforded to school administrators versus teachers. It suggests that although administrators receive significantly higher pay for what may be perceived as minimal work, teachers, who dedicate immense effort and commitment to their students, are often undervalued and underpaid. This statement critiques the system that prioritizes financial compensation over the meaningful impact that teachers have on education and society.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a faculty meeting discussing budget allocations, this quote could be used to emphasize the need for better support for teachers.
More from Edward Abbey
All quotes βI love America because it is a confused, chaotic mess - and I hope we can keep it this way for at least another thousand years. The permissive society is the free society.
If it's knowledge and wisdom you want, then seek out the company of those who do real work for an honest purpose.
The earth is real. Only a fool, milking his cow, denies the cow's reality.
I believe in nothing that I cannot touch, kiss, embrace.... The rest is only hearsay.
Why can't we simply borrow what is useful to us from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, especially Zen, as we borrow from Christianity, science, American Indian traditions and world literature in general, including philosophy, and let the rest go hang? Borrow what we need but rely principally upon our own senses, common sense and daily living experience.
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May blessings be upon the head of Cadmus, the Phoenicians, or whoever it was that invented books.
In The Field Of Public Education, The Doctrine Of 'Separate But Equal' Has No Place
So, I was in a segregated, all black, public elementary school until fourth grade, until my father died. And that's when my mother transferred me to a private, predominantly white school and I saw both sides of the world at a very young age.
Read. It makes you more intelligent. Itβs that simple. We all see the universe through the tiny keyhole of our own eyes, and every book is another keyhole from which you can gaze.
It is easier to build a boy than to mend a man.
Being really good at 'learning how to learn,' as President Bill Brody of Johns Hopkins put it, will be an enormous asset in an era of rapid change and innovation, when new jobs will be phased in and old ones phased out faster than ever.