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Daisaku Ikeda

Asked what happened to my project, I stammered out that I had forgotten it at home. To my horror, the teacher told me to go home and bring it back right away. I returned home feeling desperate and miserable. Looking around, I saw a bookshelf my older brother had made. I presented that to my teacher, who praised my work and gave me good grade for it. But, looking back, I am sure that he knew what the real story was.

From one perspective you might say that this teacher was rewarding me for lying, but that is not my view. Through the warm, large-hearted way he embraced me, he communicated to me a very concrete sense of being believed in – really what I needed at that moment. And, of course, I felt deeply ashamed, and vowed never to let such a thing happen again.

I believe that education is what remains long after the content of each specific lesson we were taught has been forgotten. The essence of education is character formation, teaching young people how to live in society and encouraging them to think independently. Study is much more than simply absorbing existing knowledge and techniques, and the ability to memorise and reason is nothing compared to the wisdom, emotional richness and creativity which resides within every human being.

Education that does not teach a sense of values turns people into mere robots filled with data but with no understanding of what it is for.

It saddens me that now this vital bond between pupil and teacher seems to have been weakened by distrust and misunderstanding. I once heard about a Japanese elementary school teacher who was irritated by a girl in his class who was unable to keep up. He gave up trying to help her after a fellow teacher told him, “Human beings are just like fruit: twenty to thirty per cent is always worthless and there is nothing you can do about it.”

Then, one day during a break, he noticed the girl playing with a puzzle, trying to put plastic pieces together so they fit into a box. Finally she succeeded and yelled, “I got it,” her face sparkling with a delight he had never seen before. The teacher suddenly felt remorse. He discovered that the girl’s parents, both graduates of leading universities, were constantly calling her ‘stupid’. The teacher resolved to praise her every day, for every little accomplishment, to wash way the stain of criticism from her heart. After a year, the girl was transformed. Proceeding at her own pace, she came to experience the joy of learning.

This story shows how the smallest failure can destroy a child’s confidence, and the smallest catalyst can trigger growth. It is vital that teachers believe in every child’s potential and care about their happiness as human beings.

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