Only The Brave Should Teach

Pearl S Buck, an American novelist who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1938, and a Pulitzer Prize in 1932 once wrote…

Only the brave should teach, the men and women whose integrity cannot be shaken, whose minds are enlightened enough to understand the high calling of the teacher, whose hearts are unshakeably loyal to the young, whatever the interests of those who are in power.

There is no hope for our world unless we can educate a different kind of man and woman.

I put the teacher higher than any other person today in world society and responsibility and in opportunity.

Only those who love the young should teach.

Teaching is not a way to make a livelihood.

The livelihood is incidental.

Teaching is a vocation.

 It is a sacred priesthood; as innate as a desire; as inseparable as a genius which compels a great artist.

If a teacher has not the concern of humanity; the love for living creatures, the vision of the priest and of the artist, they must not teach.

Teachers who hate to teach can only have pupils who hate to learn.

Great and true teachers think of the child, dream of the child, see visions, not in themselves but in the flowering of the child into adulthood.

They think of the child first and always, not of themselves.

It takes courage to be a teacher, and it takes unalterable love for the child.

Only the brave should teach.

This passage was given to me during my first-year practicum at Oakville Public School by the Prac Coordinator. He was passionate about ensuring that we were not deluded by what teaching expected from us. He was honest from the start. It wasn’t to scare us but more to prepare us.

Not a bad manuscript for the practicing or would-be teacher. Agree or disagree?

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