History acronyms with Year 1s and Germany with IGCSE. It's still up, even though Raffles has now well and truly founded Singapore with Year 1 and we're so far into Russia we're about to cover the NEP (that's the New Economic Policy, although I'm sure you all remembered that).
On the back wall are quotes to inspire and entertain. And in Mrs. Gregory styley I have put up the quotes that made me laugh a couple of weeks ago, although they are not laminated.
Along with the not so subtle 'You always have choice'. I have one boy in particular that needs constant reminding of the fact he has a choice in what he does. Yet he consistently will choose the wrong option so...
there is this handy reminder at the front. So help me, if my form class learn anything this year it will be this. (You might also notice I no longer have rows. When I came back in late June I acquired square desks enabling a horse shoe formation, the way I wanted my classroom from when I started!).
So with the photos up, here are the quotes I have up (perhaps you can read them at your leisure, there's a lot!):
'We need history, not to tell us what happened or to explain the past, but to make the past alive so that it can explain us and make a future possible.'
Alan Bloom, American philosopher
'Whatever is good to know is difficult to learn.'
Greek Proverb
'Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.'
Robert Collier, English writer
'Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.'
Eleanor Roosevelt, American humanitarian and political leader
'You don’t need eyes to see, you need vision.'
Maxi Jazz, lead singer of Faithless in ‘Reverence’
'Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.'
Oprah Winfrey, American media queen
'The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.'
Eleanor Roosevelt, American humanitarian and political leader
'Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?'
Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States of America
'Ninety percent of what you’re saying isn’t coming out of your mouth.'
Alex Hitchens, in ‘Hitch’
'The death of one man is a tragedy;the death of a million men is a statistic.'
Josef Stalin, leader of the USSR
'Whatever you are, be a good one.'
Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States of America
'Ah ha ha ha ha!'
Mary Poppins, in ‘Mary Poppins’
'Not failure, but low aim, is crime.'
James Russell Lowell, American poet, writer and diplomat
'I have five lessons to teach. What lessons they learn is entirely up to them.'
Nanny McPhee, in ‘Nanny McPhee’
'Why are you trying so hard to fit in when you are born to stand out?'
Ian Wallace, in ‘What a Girl Wants’
'You know the Greeks didn't write obituaries, they only asked one question after a man died, "Did he have passion?"'
Dean Kansky, in ‘Serendipity’
'You are what you choose to be.'
Dean McCoppin, in ‘The Iron Giant’
'To infinity and beyond!'
Buzz Lightyear, in ‘Toy Story’
'A brilliant man will find a way not to fight a war.'
Admiral Yamamoto, in ‘Pearl Harbor’
'Every man who wages war believes God is on his side. I'll warrant God should often wonder who is on his.'
Oliver Cromwell, in ‘Cromwell’
'Only the dead have seen the end of war.'
Plato, Greek philosopher
'War is young men dying and old men talking.'
Odysseus, in ‘Troy’
'Failure is never quite so frightening as regret.'
Cliff Buxton, in ‘The Dish’
'It’s what you do right now that makes a difference.'
Jeff Struecker, in ‘Black Hawk Down’
'It is not our abilities that show what we truly are, it is our choices.'
Albus Dumbledore, in ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’
'I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
'I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
'I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
'I have a dream today.'
Martin Luther King, American Civil Rights leader
'What we do in life echoes in eternity.'
Maximus, in ‘Gladiator’
'An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.'
Mohandas Gandhi, political leader in the Indian independence movement
'From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.'
Winston Churchill, war time Prime Minister of Great Britain
'An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.'
Mohandas Gandhi, political leader in the Indian independence movement
'Where does the power come from to see the race to its end? From within.'
Eric Liddell in ‘Chariots of Fire’
'Ich bin ein Berliner.'
John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States of America
'My good friends this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour. I believe it is peace in our time.'
Neville Chamberlain, British Prime Minister, after meeting Hitler in 1938
'In Germany they first came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me - and by that time no one was left to speak up.'
Martin Niemoller, German Lutheran Pastor
'Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.'
Chinese Proverb
'Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it is awfully hard to get it back in.'
H.R. Haldeman, political aide to President Nixon
'Those who stand for nothing, fall for anything.'
Alexander Hamilton, US Founding Father
'No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind...'
John Donne, English poet and preacher
'Why is there a piano on my cake?
King Xerxes, in ‘Esther, the Girl Who Became Queen’
So now we're on holiday! National Day is a really big to-do, with a huge parade (NDP if you please, I'm sure you can work it out!) that they start practising for in February. From the clips I have seen it looks akin to an Olympic Opening Ceremony. So I'll be looking forward to the fireworks at the end as I doubt they'll have a Barry Davies not totally understanding what is going on.
I will be having my own NDP tomorrow, although mine stands for National Day at the Pool! Happy 42nd birthday Singapore!
