by Leo Corman ’15

While some teachers (perhaps the more inexperienced ones) decide to decorate their classrooms in a careless and haphazard fashion, the true educators know that the content they put on their walls has a tremendous influence on student productivity and performance.  Specifically, teachers’ choices for quotes will have lasting repercussions for their students throughout the school year.

As students begin to drift off during class, presumably disinterested and bored with the topic at hand, their eyes and attentions inevitably wander.  Now the quotes spring into action.  A brightly colored poster catches the student’s eye.  In order for the student to really connect with and respond to the quote, it absolutely must be simple and brief (strict-ten word maximum).  Too complex or lengthy and students might collapse from the mental exhaustion of trying to figure them out.  The quote should also contain a concept or message with which the student is familiar, preferably something the student has heard before.  The more hackneyed, the better—after all, there is nothing students enjoy more than being told things that they already know and have known.

If the quote performs its intended function properly, then the student reading it will instantly well up with all sorts of positive energy.  Inspired, the student will likely return to the classroom activities with renewed vigor and a completely altered perspective of life.  These quotes also carry a great deal of importance because they give students a mechanism by which to judge their teachers’ intellectual acuity and philosophical depth.  Obscure, indecipherable quotes can make a teacher seem pretentious and condescending.

“I thought [English teacher Peter] Huck was a pretty cool guy at first,” confided an anonymous student.  “But then, one day, I was reading some of the quotes on his wall, and they were just really long and complicated and from a bunch of people I’d never heard of.  I wondered, ‘Does he think he’s better than me just because he has these weird quotes on his wall?’  What a snob!”

Clearly, teachers need to take more careful consideration before they ruin their reputations over one badly chosen quote.  However, they must be cautious—if their quotes get too good, students will never be able to focus on their lesson.