Bertrand Russell: Function of Teacher
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About a century ago, teaching was a small, highly skilled profession, but it has now become a large and important public service. Teachers are faced with many problems today which were unknown to their counterparts in the past. As Russell said:
“It is true that they are often punished afterwards for their subversive doctrines. Socrates was put to death and Plato is said to have been thrown into prison, but such incidents did not interfere with the spread of their doctrines.”
The Greek teachers had to deal with a highly cultured aristocracy for which education was the means of acquiring the graces of living. He was left more or less by the state to do his work the way he liked the best. He could design his own courses and use of methods which appealed to him the best. Education today is given to everybody, usually by the state and sometimes also by the Church. This makes the teacher a kind of civil servant who must carry out the behests of the superiors who are not directly involved with the educational process and who have no contact with the pupils. Often the attitude of those who are at the heim of affairs in the field of education is that of the propagandist. All this makes it extremely difficult for the teacher to discharge his functions in the proper manners.
By the nature of things, education has now to be provided to the citizen by the state. However state education is full of certain dangers which must be avoided in order that the educational process does not become a source of harm rather than good to the students. In authoritarian states no one who does not subscribe to the official dogmas would be permitted to teach. Russell suggests some safeguards against these dangers: In the Nazi Germany education was used as an instrument to wrap the minds of the young, so that they thought of the German as a very superior race and looked down upon the rest of mankind. Even in democratic countries there are many lurking dangers which must be carefully dealt with in order that they can be overcome. The purpose of education is to inculcate a spirit of cultural internationalism. The purpose is defeated if education is oriented only towards the development of a spirit of staunch nationalism.
The most important function of a teacher is to inculcate in his pupils beliefs which are wise and sensible. It is unfortunate that over a large part of a globe, the teacher is forced to propagate dogmatic doctrinal beliefs which are approved by the state. The teacher’s real function is not to become an agent of this but a safeguard against it. Teachers should act as guardians of civilization. They should spread and promote the culture of the mind. Teachers must not be overworked, or burdened too much with preparing their pupils for examinations, if they are to discharge their real function. There should be no curbs on their freedom of thoughts and inquiry. Teachers should not be forced to keep facts away from their students. Teachers must inculcate the spirit of tolerance which is necessary of the survival of democracy. What to teach, and how to teach it, is something which teacher should be allowed to decide for themselves. They should act out their creative impulses.
The greatest danger to the proper function of the teacher is the prevalence of party spirit. Party spirit leads to civil wars as well as international wars. The teachers must stand outside the strife of parties and try to instill into the young the habit of impartial inquiry, so that they can judge every issue on its merits and do not uncritically accept ready-made opinions which are based upon an entirely one- sided view of the case. It is not enough for the teacher to soften the intensity of violent controversies.
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