Benjamin L. Bartlett

6th Grade Study Skills,

MS Latin, Media Literacy, Writing Resource,

and Advisory Coordinator

E-Mail: bbartlett@rockyhill.org

Education:

• South Kent School, 1981

• Hampden Sydney College, 1985, BA in English

• Wesleyan University, 2004, MALS in the Humanities

Background:

• South Kent School (1986-1992)

• Cushing Academy (1992-1998)

• Rocky Hill School (1998-Present)

• Member of the National Council of Teachers of English (1992-Present)

Experience:

• Teaching:
  English – Grades 6, 7, 10, 11, and 12;
  Latin – Grades 7 - 12
  
• Coaching:
  Soccer, Hockey, and Lacrosse – Grades 6-12
  
• Advising:
  Boys and Girls – Grades 6-12

Philosophy of Education:

"My philosophy is to encourage an active and thoughtful learning experience. To achieve this, I intentionally challenge my students to meet his or her true potential not only as scholar-athletes, but also as positively contributing members to the greater community. As these students generate an enhanced appreciation for their ever-evolving and influential self, they should relate more compassionately and mindfully to the world around them. Hopefully, they will enjoy more success in their ongoing pursuit of knowledge and truth as a result of this balanced sense of perspective and purpose. "

Interests and Activities:

"First and foremost, I thoroughly enjoy spending time with my family, friends, and a variety of loyal, four-legged animals. Some other personal passions are: appreciating sports of all kinds, but caring most about soccer, hockey, and lacrosse; celebrating every facet of the performing arts, but expressing myself best through poetry, song, and painting; and, finally, actively seeking glorious sunsets and moonrises, particularly over any body of water. "

On a Personal Note:

"Not only have I been fortunate to teach at Rocky Hill School for the past eight years, but I have also felt blessed to extend this challenging and valuable educational experience to my daughters, Ana and Phoebe, for most of that time as well. In addition, I am thankful for the two other loves of my life - my wife, Betsy, and youngest daughter, Emma – without whom my world would be incomplete. "

Photo Gallery

Thoughtful Quotes and Pearls of Wisdom

- Collected from Bartlett's Book of Famous Quotations 1999 365-day calendar et al., in no particular order . . .

"My aim is true."

 Elvis Costello, Alison

“It matters if you don't just give up.”

  Steven Hawking

“Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.”

  Rabindranath Tagore

“Without hope we live in desire."

 Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy [Inferno], 1310

"First ponder, then dare."

 Helmuth von Moltke

"Pride goeth before destruction and an haughty spirit before a fall."

 The Old Testament : The Proverbs, 16:18

"As if you could kill time without injuring eternity."

 Henry David Thoreau, Walden , 1854

"The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the old man who will not laugh is a fool."

 George Santayana, Dialogues in Limbo , 1926

"Follow your bliss."

 Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, 1988

"He who loves the world as his body may be entrusted with the empire."

 Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-tzu

"This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel."

 Horace Walpole, Letters , August 16, 1776

"There are no shortcuts. Life is a series of lessons imperfectly learned."

 Harrison Salisbury

"Thus times do shift, each thing his turn does hold; new things succeed, as former things grow old."

 Robert Herrick, Herperides , 1648

"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested."

 Francis Bacon, Essays , 1625

"Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing."

 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: First Series , 1841

"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."

 Sir Winston Spencer Churchill, First Statement as Prime Minister, 04/14/1940

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."

 Henry David Thoreau, Walden , 1854

"Knowledge is power."

 Francis Bacon, Meditationes Sacrae , 1597

"Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration."

 Thomas Alva Edison, on Life, 1932

"In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart."

 Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl , entry July 15, 1944

"No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad."

 Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus , 1833-1834

"I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance."

 Samuel Johnson, from James Boswell, Life of Johnson , 1791

"No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck."

 Frederick Douglass, Speech at Civil Rights Mass Meeting, 1883

"If I am not for myself, who is for me? And when I am for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?"

 Hillel from Talmud [compiled 6th century], The Wisdom of the Fathers

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do."

 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: First Series , 1841

"Nonviolence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed."

 Mahatma Ghandi, defense against charge of sedition, March 23, 1922

"There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way."

 Christopher Morley, Where the Blue Begins , 1922

"Beneath the rule of men entirely great, the pen is mightier than the sword."

 Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Baron Lytton, Richelieu , 1839

"Nature teaches more than she preaches. There are no sermons in stones."

 John Burroughs, Time and Change , 1912

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

 Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, This Is My Story , 1937

"Compassion is not weakness, and concern for the unfortunate is not Socialism."

Hubert Horatio Humphrey, remark

"Finally we shall place the Sun himself at the center of the Universe."

 Nicholas Copernicus, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium , 1543

"Parents are the bones on which children sharpen their teeth."

 Peter Ustinov , Dear Me , 1977

"If you don't know where you're going, you will probably end up somewhere else."

 Laurence Johnston Peter, The Peter Principle , 1969

"The most wasted day of all is that on which we have not laughed."

 Sebastien Roch Nicholas Chamfort, Maxims and Thoughts

"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome."

 Anne Bradstreet, Meditations Divine and Moral , 1664

"Iron rusts from disuse . . . even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind."

 Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks , 1508-1518

"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."

 Martin Luther King Jr., Speech at Civil Rights March on Washington , 08/28/1963

"Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you."

 Satchel [Leroy] Page, How to Stay Young , 1953

"You're either part of the solution or part of the problem."

 [Leroy] Eldridge Cleaver, Speech, 1968

"Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous."

 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature , 1836

"Work as if you were to live a hundred years; Pray as if you were to die tomorrow."

Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanac , 1757

"Life is a great big canvas; throw all the paint on it you can."

 Danny Kaye

"Poetry is ultimately mythology, the telling of the stories of the soul."

 Stanley Kunitz

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Revised September, 2006