With better vision, we sacrifice for students for whom that sacrifice will most likely pay off. I'm sorry to say this, but there are times when even superhuman effort will not save a child from his environment or himself. It's not the job of the teacher to save a child's soul; it is the teachers' job to provide an opportunity for the child to save his own soul.
Interpretation
Teachers provide opportunities for students to grow, but ultimately, students must take responsibility for their own futures.
This quote highlights the essential role of educators in creating opportunities for their students, suggesting that while teachers can offer support and resources, the ultimate responsibility for personal success lies with the students themselves. It acknowledges the challenges that some students face in their environments and emphasizes that teachers cannot rescue every child but can equip them to navigate their own paths toward success.
In practice
During a keynote speech at a teacher's conference to inspire educators to motivate their students.
Never compare one student's test score to another's. Always measure a child's progress against her past performance. There will always be a better reader, mathematician, or baseball player. Our goal is to help each student become as special as she can be as an individual--not to be more special than the kid sitting next to her.
...Writings can be stolen, or changed, or used for evil purposes. But isn't the risk worth taking? The more people who share knowledge, the greater safeguard for it. Isn't there more danger in ignorance than knowledge?
Early intervention programs enrich adverse family environments. The largest effects of the early intervention programs are on noncognitive traits. Now, what do I mean by that? I mean perseverance, motivation, self-esteem, and hard work.
Until, modern times when it became mostly a civic task, education was considered a sacred work. It was sacred because it involved the indwelling spirit in the student and because it required an awakened spirit in the teachers. Spirit to spirit, genius to genius, soul to soul go the true lessons that help young people become themselves. Ultimately, each person holds the key to the story trying to be lived from within, but first someone else must help unlock the mystery of one’s life.
Books are slow, books are quiet. The Internet is fast and loud.
I believe that every child in this world needs to have a relationship with the land...to know how to nourish themselves...and to know how to connect with the community around them.
In the same way that we need statesmen to spare us the abjection of exercising power, we need scholars to spare us the abjection of learning.
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