Only lately did I read an ingenious story of a teacher who prevented disclosure of a thief’s identity in class which made him an idol of the thief who decide also to become a teacher because of the great example given. The perpetrator stole the watch of a classmate and sagaciously the teacher decided that since the theft was made inside the classroom then the problem had to be resolved within. The students were made to form a circle with their eyes closed and were all frisked and there, the watch was recovered with as one knowing who the thief was.

A little review perhaps is necessary so that the continuum of thought would prevail. First, we explored how it all started in school in the midst of evil teachers. The student’s search for truth was reimaged and reimagined as really search for power and pleasure. In the name of the exercises of natural rights the child seeking to be god-like gets perverted.

“An unexamined life is not worth living” said Socrates and with such life tenet he was able to influence the greatest minds of antiquity, his student Plato, and in turn Plato’s student Aristotle. But whatever time to start examining one’s life than the earliest possible time as when one is still a student and embarking on a long life’s journey into meaning.

Whenever I think about compensatory mechanisms, I can’t help but think also of Charlie Chaplin, the Great American comic. His set of quotes I like best in relation to this topic are: “There is nothing permanent in this life, not even our troubles.” , “I like walking in the rain because nobody will notice the tears”, and “The most wasted day in my life is one which I wasn’t able to laugh.”

It was the turning point in school, too, when the students were taught about the sexual urge as they begin puberty. And curiously enough the teachers were not told to instruct them from experimentation or how they should avoid the abuse of sexuality.

Only recently the virtuous teaching of the Truth became undermined once more through virtual teaching or what is outwardly good but actually is evil teaching. Our battlecry in education is grace because teaching should be a gift of the Holy Spirit but as it is unfolding today in many educational systems, what is being taught would later on prove to be a disgrace.

In the U. S., particularly in secular schools, teachers allow a few moments of silence for their students to, perhaps, pray. Prayer is no longer prescribed in public schools because there is too much respect for what a person believes. If a person therefore comes from an atheistic family, he must therefore won’t be compelled to pray, hence, the silence.