A quote from George Bernard Shaw’s Maxims for Revolutionists says “He who can does; he who cannot, teaches.”  I’ve heard so many versions of this quote so many times and to be honest this always gets into my nerves but I never had the courage to say anything for the fear of embarrassing myself. But as I kept on reading articles about teaching, I now may have a more solid basis on why this quote is false.

In the history of education, there was a time when children were educated to be laborers where in their urge to play and explore was suppressed. In the eighteenth century, John Wesley believed that children should not be allowed to play “for he that plays as a child will play as a man.” So is this true?  The definition of the Latin verb educere means to draw out. If what’s inside the child, his nature, is to play, then should the child be allowed to learn in this manner? Fortunately, Wesley’s view did not survive modern education as we soon realized that education is not cloning each person to do a certain labor task but that learners are unique human beings with freedom to explore and ability to dialogue, negotiate, process and live out what is learned. We began to see that childhood should be a time for learning and exploring.

When we look at Skinner’s view that education is getting children into a certain “behavioral type” we disregard the idea that children are indeed unique individuals. Having said all of these, education is not as simple as it looks. It is not simply passing of knowledge but there are personal implications which may make or break a person for life. So when people belittle our profession, I would tell them that they really are who they are now because of the teachers who invested their time and efforts to draw out the best in them.

There are many times I wanted to just switch careers because being a teacher really requires a lot of sacrifice and is often a thankless job, but when I look at my past students and where they are now, I just can’t help but give myself a pat in the back as I follow their successes and I proudly tell myself, “I’m a part of that.”

Come to think of it, we can pattern our teaching view from the greatest teacher who ever lived on earth, Jesus Christ. He did not treat every one of His disciples the same way. He let them watch Him, He let them learn by doing. He let them make mistakes, then conducts processing after. He involved them during the time when other “teachers of the law” would ask their students to memorize the law. He knew them personally and he knew what their strengths and weaknesses were and how to approach each of them with a teaching point.

Words cant express how privileged we are to share the same cause as our Savior.