The Wisdom of Dr. Seuss

"Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope." – Dr. Seuss

Dr. Seuss is a great storyteller. I am constantly amazed at rhyme and wit. I think beneath his rhyming, he shares some really significant ideas. Following are a few "Seussisms" and lessons we might learn from them.

Quote #1: In the classic Dr. Seuss story, Horton Hears a Who, Horton, the elephant, states that "A person's a person, no matter how small."

There is an obvious lesson we can learn from Horton, but the lesson I want to focus on can only happen if we change the statement a little to read, "A person's a person, no matter how big."

Often times we think when a full-size student walks into the classroom, we need to be tough with him in order to get him to comply. No matter how big or small a student is, that student will respond better to positive rather than negative consequences.

Whether you are teaching in an elementary, junior high, or high school setting, you will need to spend more time recognizing appropriate student behaviors and less time worrying about inappropriate/inconsequential student behaviors.

Quote #2: "From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere." Having a sense of humor in the classroom is essential to a good day in the classroom. Relax a little and enjoy the students. It's most likely why you wanted to teach in the first place.

Quote #3: "I meant what I said and I said what I meant." Learn to trim down your language so that students know that you only say what you mean. When I was first teaching, I had an awful habit of repeating things at least three times. One day I had another teacher come in and observe me to tell me what I was doing wrong. She said that I had trained the students not to listen to me because I was repeating things so often.

Being a clear and concise speaker helps students to know that you said what you meant and meant what you said.

Quote #4: "I'm sorry to say so but, sadly it's true that bang-ups and hang-ups can happen to you." The rough part about teaching is the fact that there are going to be bad days. One thing that decreased my amount of bad days was focusing more on what students were doing right than what they were doing wrong. Whatever behavior you pay the most attention to is the behavior that is going to prevail in the classroom.

Quote #5: "Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple." What a truly profound statement. We expect that because our classroom management problems are so complex that the solutions to those problems have to be complex. But in reality, what will solve those problems are implementing the things we know work: having a starter activity on the board when the students walk in, having fill in activities ready so when students complete their work you have something to give them, using proximity, and constantly praising students who are on task.