Her name was Anđelija Lelicanin.
She was an elementary school math teacher, in this last century.
She recognized the talent for calculations, formulas and tasks in the withdrawn "coravka", so with regular praise and encouragement, she recommended him to go to the Mathematical Gymnasium. Thus, "coravko" suddenly got the hope that he would stand out for something in his childhood; along the way, he gained additional respect from his astonished parents, who either did not have that mathematical talent or, on the other hand, no one had revealed it to them.
A few dozen additional math lessons later, the "slump" passed the entrance exam for admission to the recommended school. And several dozen years later, an elderly gentleman with glasses writes this editorial for Okruženje, and this week's topic is about educators. The ancient talent was "embedded" in some other skill. If the recognition mentioned above did not exist, these lines would not exist either.
Thank you, teacher.
* * * * *
Then... Ann Sullivan was her name.
She lived at the transition from the XNUMXth to the XNUMXth century, and history remembered her as the teacher and mentor of Helen Keller, an American author and activist who, from the age of nineteen months until the end of her life, was both blind and deaf. Helen - despite all her disabilities, and with the help of Anne, her personal educator - managed to learn to communicate with the world, and then to create, publish and teach. Helen Keller supplemented all her talents - developed despite all the limitations that existed - by fighting for the rights of the disabled, as well as by advocating for the rights of those who were disenfranchised for many other reasons. Helen Keller has gone down in history as an example of the abilities that come from personal struggle, perseverance and energy. None of this would have happened if it hadn't been for Anne Sliven, the teacher, who needed the same amount of struggle, persistence and energy to help turn one Helen into Helen Keller.
Teachers are people who, of all they know, know best what kind of people young people can become.
*****
Those who teach our children in this century have very tough competition. Besides the school blackboard, there are three other blackboards, which both children and parents look at: the small telephone board, the medium computer board and the large television board.
The situation with upbringing and education is made even more difficult by two principles of social organization that have sneaked into the current civilization and dominated it: consumerism, which turns us into increasingly empty wallets; and the precariat, which turned us all (again) into slaves of those same wallets, which are getting harder and harder to fill. And since the end of last year, Artificial Intelligence has appeared on the horizon of the Omniscient, so it's only a matter of days when the always frugal state apparatuses will realize that robots are actually ideal educators. They don't ask for a higher salary or less work, they don't go on strike, and they can better "catch" children copying from ChatGPT. Plus they are not going to retire, but to "upgrade".
And in this little dehumanizing digression from the last sentence, perhaps the biggest pain that exists in the education system is hidden: the increasingly obvious lack of humanity. The conditions in which most "educators" are increasingly working are inhumane; are inhumane tasks that are increasingly placed before all of them; the inhuman frameworks that new technologies, new media and new society put before education; it is inhumane violence that is growing in society and schools; and there are less and less human conditions for economic, communication and any other progress of the families themselves. So now, of all the teachers we need, perhaps the most needed are those who will teach us how, in the times to come, we will not remain - without teachers. Otherwise, the following lesson would be remembered forever: no one protects civilization and knowledge better than those who protect children from uncivilization and ignorance. Therefore, it would be wise for us to preserve them.
If we have any brains.
Bonus video:
