"Make no mistake about it: Next to parents and families, our teachers are the most important influence in our children's lives"
About this Quote
Make no mistake about it signals urgency and a refusal to equivocate. The line draws a clear hierarchy of influence in a child’s formation: families first, teachers right behind them. The emphasis is not only on what teachers teach, but on the reach of their presence. Day after day, they shape how children read the world, argue with evidence, manage frustration, work in teams, and imagine futures for themselves. Skills and subjects matter, but so do the habits and horizons that teachers model. A caring teacher can recalibrate a student’s confidence; a high standard, consistently enforced, can reset what a child thinks is possible.
Kenny Guinn knew this from policy and practice. As governor of Nevada, he made education a signature issue and created the Millennium Scholarship to widen opportunity for state students. His state’s explosive growth placed unusual demands on schools, especially in large, diverse districts, and his rhetoric underscored that teachers were the linchpins holding together academic expectations, social development, and civic readiness. By placing teachers directly after families, he acknowledged that schools do not replace the home; they amplify it, or sometimes compensate when home support is thin. That positioning also rebuts a narrow view of teachers as mere deliverers of curriculum. They are architects of culture inside classrooms where children spend much of their waking lives.
If that judgment is true, the implications are practical as well as moral. Communities cannot claim to value children and then underinvest in the adults who guide them. Serious preparation, mentoring, time to plan, manageable class sizes, and pay that reflects responsibility are not perks; they are prerequisites for the influence Guinn describes to be a positive one. Accountability has a place, but respect and resources must lead. The quote is ultimately about partnership: families and teachers aligned, each reinforcing the other, so that a child’s path is shaped by the best of both worlds.
Kenny Guinn knew this from policy and practice. As governor of Nevada, he made education a signature issue and created the Millennium Scholarship to widen opportunity for state students. His state’s explosive growth placed unusual demands on schools, especially in large, diverse districts, and his rhetoric underscored that teachers were the linchpins holding together academic expectations, social development, and civic readiness. By placing teachers directly after families, he acknowledged that schools do not replace the home; they amplify it, or sometimes compensate when home support is thin. That positioning also rebuts a narrow view of teachers as mere deliverers of curriculum. They are architects of culture inside classrooms where children spend much of their waking lives.
If that judgment is true, the implications are practical as well as moral. Communities cannot claim to value children and then underinvest in the adults who guide them. Serious preparation, mentoring, time to plan, manageable class sizes, and pay that reflects responsibility are not perks; they are prerequisites for the influence Guinn describes to be a positive one. Accountability has a place, but respect and resources must lead. The quote is ultimately about partnership: families and teachers aligned, each reinforcing the other, so that a child’s path is shaped by the best of both worlds.
Quote Details
| Topic | Teacher Appreciation |
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