Han Yu, a Chinese essayist, poet, and thinker from the Tang dynasty, defines what a teacher is in his famous written works: 'A teacher is someone who teaches academics and the proper duty of human beings, and who becomes a role model for people.' There are teachers who teach only knowledge, and there are teachers who teach the duty of life, upright character, and answer their disciples' deep questions. What kind of truth would a true teacher teach? How he would untie the questions in his disciples' hearts?
If You Forget, You Will Die
There was a robust boy in the class, Tim. I heard that he was very difficult to handle, and well known for being the “boss” in the other branch of our daycare centre. He used to create chaos and fights, thus the students in that branch were very delighted and cheered for his leaving. Imagine how hard was their life in the past.
One day during rest time, a loud cry broke out. Oh? What happened? I ran out from the class, seeing Ben was crying in pain while lying on the sofa, surrounding by other chattering kids. Some of the kids snitched to me, “Coach, Tim kicked him!” “Coach, Tim kicked his leg!” “They were fighting!”
I asked the other students to go back to the classroom, then I stern at him. First I consoled Ben and found out what had happened. I scolded Tim seriously because it was not a small matter that could resolve by just simple apologizing. In order to ensure that he knew the seriousness of the situation and not to repeat the same mistake, I ordered him to apologized to Ben’s father. The Great Boss Tim became depressed and silent for a moment. He walked into the classroom without a word, sat down on his chair, with his back facing everyone. He became gloomy all of a sudden.
Ben’s father arrived the centre and was waiting downstairs. I brought Tim down, explained to Ben’s father and wanted Tim to apologized for what he had done. With great cautious, Tim said, “I’m sorry.” Ben’s father looked very sullen and was not very happy, however he was still manage to speak calmly, “ Why do you do that? What is your name? How old are you? What school are you from?”
“Tim. 11 years old. Same school with Ben,” Tim became timid while answering the questions.
“You are elder than Ben. You should take care of him, why did you kick him? Moreover you are in the same school with him. Do you know how serious is this? If anything happened to Ben, there is no other person who can be Ben. What could you do to replace Ben? Do you know who am I? I can arrest you if you behave like that.”
At that moment, both Tim and I were surprised. Ben’s father was a police.
“Don’t you believe in me? Let me show you my uniform.” He opened the car door, showing a authoritative navy blue police uniform. Tim was stunned. Me too. This is really a police.
After Ben left with his father, I reminded Tim again, “You must remember what happened today. There is a reason why rules exist, it is to ensure the safety but not for coach to control you. You must be the role model in the future.” Tim replied with a loud “Yes!”.
Many children and even adults do not really understand what is freedom. They feel constricted when there are more rules and thus they do not want to follow the rules. If freedom is equivalent to lawlessness, then incidents similar to Tim’s case will happen. A nation, a family, a school and even traffic have rules. If we do not follow these rules, it will ruin a person in a small scale, destroy a country and even the whole world if it happens in a large scale.
Human, too, have to follow certain rules in life. It is not that people do not know but it is due to ignorance or mindlessness. Human memory can be divided into 3 types, sensory memory, short term memory and long term memory. The concepts, skills and experiences that has been acquired through daily life learning will be stored in long term memory. Thus it can be used in our life without repeating the learning processes every day. For an example, a child was learning how to brush his teeth. Once he acquired that skill, he would be able to brush his teeth regardless of how old he is.
However, human brain is forgetful. Even though we learnt, we may not recognise the seriousness if we miss out something. Pastor Joshua Jung once said, if you forget, you will die. This may be frightening but if you look into it, you will understand that is the reality.
When I was in school, sometimes I forgot the exam’s date and did not do revision. My classmates would always remind me but I tended to forget after I went back home. As a result, my exam results died. Now, when I was working, there were a lot of cases to handle, sometimes I may forget the matters requested by the parents and that was the time where my credit died. If you forget to drive safely and using phone/ disobey the traffic light’s rules, you will die. If you forget the love while having disagreement with others, causing conflicts, then the relationship will die.
Many people are working hard for their future, money, fame, children and lover. As time passes, when everyone is tired, you would have the thought of giving up and not continuing the efforts.
When we forget the foundation and feeling indifferent while putting efforts, the work will die, the life will die too. Same with faith. Hence, restart your own brain and search for the foundation of life!