Thursday, December 01, 2005

Function of a Teacher

Bertrand Russell wrote: “Men pass from birth to death, sometimes happy, sometimes unhappy; sometimes generous, sometimes grasping and petty; sometimes heroic, sometimes cowardly and servile. To the man who views the procession as a whole, certain things stands as worthy of admiration. Some men have been inspired by love of mankind; some by supreme intellect have helped us to understand the world in which we live; and some by exceptional sensitiveness have created beauty. These men have produced something of positive good to outweigh the long record of cruelty, oppression, and superstition. These men have done what lay in their power to make human life a better thing than the brief turbulence of savages. The civilized man, where he cannot admire, will aim rather at understanding than at reprobating. He will seek rather to discover and remove the impersonal causes of evil than hate the men who are in its grip. All this should be in the mind and heart of the teacher, and it if it in his mind and heart he will convey it in his teaching to the young who are in his care.”
For my part, if I had teachers like a Bertrand Russell at De La Salle University, I never would have been expelled out of high school. A teacher like Russell would never have taught me to believe in silly things under the threat of a silly damnation in hell-fire. Poch Suzara

1 comment:

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