Robert Talbert's Tumbleblog

Would you be disappointed if your children grew up without an academic ambition?

The main thing I want for my kids is that they grow up to be intelligent, thoughtful, kind people who enjoy their lives, love God, and have a heart to help others. I would be disappointed if they didn’t develop their gifts to the fullest, but this is different than “ambition”. In some ways I hope they DON’T have ambition, since ambition is so often antithetical to kindness.

If my kids end up being average students, I don’t care so much as long as they are doing the best they can and keeping the big picture in mind.

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What do you think the most important quality an educator needs to have is?

The ability to combine tough-minded thinking with a love for one’s neighbor, including students.

Too often we see educators who can do one side of this equation but not the other. There are educators with keen minds and penetrating intellects who care only about themselves, their ambitions, or research. And there are educators who want to express “love” for students by making their courses flabby and unrigorous, by failing to challenge and to push students, and by seeking to be a friend rather than a mentor. Both errors are equally harmful to students and communicate exactly the wrong things about education and about lifelong learning — that kindness and intellect take pieces from the same “pie” and you can’t increase your care for others without diminishing the quality of your mind or vice versa.

The best educators have the sharpest minds and the most demanding courses — and they also have the clearest vision for how each student can develop throughout their lives (often clearer than the student himself will have). With the best educators, the academic rigor is most definitely THERE, and it’s most definitely there for a REASON.

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