Success Quote by Haim Ginott

Teaching, in Ginott's framing, is less a profession than a standing dare: hit targets no one can realistically define, using resources no one would accept in any other field. The line works because it refuses the two most common cultural scripts about educators. It is not the sentimental "teachers are heroes" poster, and it's not the bureaucratic shrug that treats schooling like a factory with bad inputs. Instead, it smuggles an indictment inside a compliment.

"Unattainable goals" is a quiet attack on the way society piles missions onto classrooms: close achievement gaps, handle mental health crises, teach civic virtue, feed kids, keep them safe, produce test scores. Many of these goals are morally urgent; Ginott's point is that urgency gets weaponized into expectation. "Inadequate tools" lands as more than low pay or outdated textbooks. It implies structural neglect: oversized classes, undertrained support staff, policy churn, political theater, and evaluation systems that punish nuance.

Then comes the pivot: "The miracle". Ginott doesn't mean divine intervention. He means the mundane, recurring shock of competence and care showing up anyway, carried by teachers' improvisation. The subtext is sharp: when success is framed as miraculous, failure can be blamed on individual teachers rather than on the conditions that made the task "impossible". In 1970s-era debates over public institutions and accountability, Ginott is defending the teacher's dignity while warning readers not to confuse sporadic triumph with a sustainable model. The quote flatters teachers, but it also challenges the rest of us: stop relying on miracles as a public policy.