WORTH THINKING ABOUT: TEACHERS
Well-known columnist Thomas L. Friedman pays this tribute to the
teacher who set him on the path to his successful career in journalism.
"Someone who made the most important difference in my life died last
year -- my high school journalism teacher, Hattie M. Steinberg. Hattie was
a woman who believed that the secret for success in life was getting the
fundamentals right. And boy, she pounded the fundamentals of journalism
into her students -- not simply how to write a lead or accurately
transcribe a quote, but, more important, how to comport yourself in a
professional way and to always do quality work. To this day, when I forget
to wear a tie on assignment, I think of Hattie scolding me. Hattie was the
toughest teacher I ever had.
"Those of us on the paper, and the yearbook that she also supervised,
lived in Hattie's classroom. We hung out there before and after school.
Now, you have to understand, Hattie was a single woman, nearing 60 at the
time, and this was the 1960s. She was the polar opposite of "cool," but we
hung around her classroom like it was a malt shop and she was Wolfman Jack.
None of us could have articulated it then, but it was because we enjoyed
being harangued by her, disciplined by her, and taught by her. She was a
woman of clarity in an age of uncertainty. That was my teacher! I sit up
straight just thinkin' about her.
"I have been thinking about Hattie a lot this year, not just because
she died on July 31, but because the lessons she imparted to us seem so
relevant now. We've just gone through this huge
dotcom-Internet-globalization bubble--during which a lot of smart people
got carried away and forgot the fundamentals of how you build a profitable
company, a lasting portfolio, a nation-state, or a thriving student. It
turns out that the real secret of success in the information age is what it
always was: fundamentals -- reading, writing, and arithmetic; church,
synagogue, and mosque; the rule of law and good governance. The Internet
can make you smarter, but it can't make you smart. It can extend your
reach, but it will never tell you what to say at a PTA meeting. These
fundamentals cannot be downloaded. You can only upload them, the
old-fashioned way, one by one, in places like Hattie's classroom. I only
regret that I didn't write this column when the woman who taught me all
that was still alive."
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