Haim G. Ginott's Quote on Education

SHARED BY JAN DUNIEWICZ

Inspired by your sharing of “Bertrand Russell's 10 commandments” and more… I’d like to share with our Subud Education Forum another additional aspect and another wisdom. It’s a quote from Haim G. Ginott (1922-1973) a teacher, child psychologist, psychotherapist.  Please forgive my bringing such a heavy subject, it summarizes however my own life experience and my approach to education. Haim G. Ginott's quote on Educated Murderers:

"Dear Teachers: I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no man should witness: Gas chambers built by learned engineers, Children poisoned by educated physicians, Infants killed by trained nurses Women and babies shot and burned by high school and college graduates, So I am suspicious of education My request is: Help your students become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths, educated Eichmanns. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more human.”

Ah, But To Be Fully Human

A RESPONSE FROM SALAMAH POPE

Ah, yes, a very great quotation. Thank you Jan. But the trouble is: no one (anthropologists, psychologists and philosophers included) knows what it means to be fully, truly, Human! Yet Bapak told us. Or, rather, he gave us a method, told us how to come up with a fool-proof description. Thus: take away (so to speak) everything that is material, vegetal, and animal in us - which leaves the Human Spirit (as I call the two human energies Bapak talked about (jasmani and rohani).) Doing that - as I have done with twelve-year olds and older - gives a good description of what a real Human being is like. And a rational system of finding the truly human values, too. Plus a universal ethic, based on the testament of nature, thrown in. If a school is to get going "outside the box", then I think using Bapak's ideas would be a good start.

#Education