A true guide knows everything that might happen along the path and does not lead people astray. This is how each and every teacher in the world should be teaching. Teachers of mathematics, physics and other pragmatic subjects are able to educate students successfully because they are teaching children about real laws that exist in Nature. They are transferring their own knowledge and experience. So, the teachers of the exact and natural sciences are ok – they don’t lie to their students.

However, the teachers who want to teach children about how to behave in life do not provide correct or realistic information. First of all, they do not live properly themselves, they do not know what will happen tomorrow, and they are unable to imagine what will happen to a child, because they have never advanced along the same path. So, when it comes to schooling, the school teachers should only teach mathematics, physics and other exact sciences.

However, when it comes to true upbringing, the only ones who can teach are those who have ascended up the spiritual ladder and are found a few degrees above the children. It doesn’t matter if the students are small children or big children – a student may even be 60 or 70 years old.

This is why we have so many problems between parents and children. The parents are still on the level of the egoistic desire, in a world that’s already moved forward. They are like dinosaurs that fell into a new world! They still want to teach their children, but their children have a new level of desire and need new teachers. So there is a two-fold mistake here! A parent belonging to a previous century is teaching a child who lives in the current century, but that child needs a teacher from the next century. There is a gap between the two degrees, and we still allege that we can teach our children something.

We do not fit the children when it comes to their desires or their fulfillment. So it’s no surprise that we do not succeed in education. Today, a new, global connection between everyone is being revealed, and we, the whole world, are completely out of touch with it.

So if we are talking about making individuals into human beings, about preparing them for life, then the teacher can only be someone who has ascended a few degrees higher. He cannot just be someone who has graduated from a college or university. After all, how could he possibly teach a child how to behave in the world if he does not understand what happens in this world himself?

(From the lesson on Baal HaSulam’s article, “One Precept,” on 03.18.2009)

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