Frank Smith famous quotes

05-16-2025

You can't see other people's point of view when you have only one language.
-- Frank Smith

#Views #People #Language
Language is not a genetic gift, it is a social gift. Learning a new language is becoming a member of the club -the community of speakers of that language.
-- Frank Smith

#Learning #Community #Clubs
The best teachers are the best storytellers.
-- Frank Smith

#Teacher #Teaching #Best Teacher
Writing is for stories to be read, books to be published, poems to be recited, plays to be acted, songs to be sung, newspapers to be shared, letters to be mailed, jokes to be told, notes to be passed, recipes to be cooked, messages to be exchanged, memos to be circulated, announcements to be posted, bills to be collected, posters to be displayed and diaries to be concealed. Writing is for ideas, action, reflection, and experience. It is not for having your ignorance exposed, your sensitivity destroyed, or your ability assessed.
-- Frank Smith

#Song #Book #Writing
The teachers who get "burned out" are not the ones who are constantly learning, which can be exhilarating, but those who feel they must stay in control and ahead of the students at all times.
-- Frank Smith

#Teacher #Students #All Time
It is a libel to suggest that children need rewards for attending to tasks, apart from intrinsic interest and satisfaction. Children work very hard in their purposeful endeavors in the world, when they have ends they want to accomplish themselves. It is meaningless teaching, not learning, that demands irrelevant incentives.
-- Frank Smith

#Children #Teaching #World
It is infinitely more useful for a child to hear a story told by a person than by computer. Because the greatest part of the learning experience lies not in the particular words of the story but in the involvement with the individual reading it.
-- Frank Smith

#Family #Children #Lying
Reading and writing don't inevitably go together. You can read without learning a thing about writing, grammar, or spelling, although, you certainly can't learn anything about writing, grammar, or spelling unless you read.
-- Frank Smith

#Education #Reading #Writing
Two kinds of reading can be distinguished. I call them reading like a reader and reading like a writer ... when you read like a reader, you identify with the characters in the story. The story is what you learn about. When you read like a writer, you identify with the author and learn about writing.
-- Frank Smith

#Education #Reading #Writing
We are learning all the time - about the world and about ourselves. We learn without knowing that we are learning and we learn without effort every moment of the day. We learn what is interesting to us... and we learn from what makes sense to us, because there is nothing to learn from what confuses us except that it is confusing.
-- Frank Smith

#Knowing #Interesting #Effort
Learning is never aversive - usually we are not aware of it at all. It is failure to learn that is frustrating and boring, and so is having to attend to nonsensical activities.
-- Frank Smith

#Boring #Nonsensical #Frustrating

You may also like:

Alan Kay
Computer Scientist
Alexander Sutherland Neill
Educator
Benjamin Lee Whorf
David Elkind
Psychologist
Donald Murray
Journalist
Edgar Dale
Professor
George Armitage Miller
Author
John Taylor Gatto
Author
Julian Jaynes
Psychologist
KatÃ³ Lomb
Marie Clay
Researcher
Rita Mae Brown
Writer
Rudolf Flesch
Author
Sybil Marshall
Writer
Sylvia Ashton-Warner
Writer
Stephen D. Krashen
Linguist