Al-Mabarrat Charitable Association marked Teacher's Day at its academic and care institutions spread across the various Lebanese regions. On this occasion the Director General of Al-Mabarrat Dr. Mohammad Baqer Fadlallah addressed a word to Al-Mabarrat Association's teachers in which he thanked “their efforts and their giving in providing a quality teaching value”. He praised “their leadership skills and their spirit of initiative, holding fast to the principle of justice”.
Fadlallah said in his speech: “Teacher of Al-Mabarrat, refined human being - refined in mind, heart and spirit - with you and through you Al-Mabarrat has risen and extended in time and place, so that it has become a symbol of excellence and creativity and a model to be followed for one who is clear about the road. With you and through you Al-Mabarrat is taken as a sign of good work and abundant goodness, and to you reference is made in secret and in public for what your hands have offered in making the blessed ship that has carried caravans, processions and crowds of good and dutiful people, of whom Al-Mabarrat boasts in the fields of knowledge, thought, learning and pride.”
Fadlallah called on the teachers to be humble, saying: “We as teachers must feel that we have energies and that we have been distinguished as learners, as holders of certificates and as distinguished trainers.. These energies should increase us in humility, for humility is the mark of a believer however high their standing. Nor should these energies enter the market of bargaining with others and competing over positions and places, or be imprisoned within the self through feelings of individualism and selfishness such that one thinks only of oneself and does not sense the existence of others or one's responsibility for caring for everything around one of pupils, children and society.”
He added: “Each of us has a role within the limits of our responsibilities, and we must avoid claiming what is beyond our capacity to know. Another's knowing what I do not know does not give them an advantage over me, for perhaps what I have the other does not know. What matters is that the teacher as a human being carries out their role, whatever their position in administration, teaching, education or other exercise of responsibility, by activating their energies in a way that produces knowledge and embodies values, so that they may be growing and moving in their thought and their experience in a way that distinguishes them from others in this wide, moving universe.”
He stressed the necessity of continuous training, saying: “A teacher must live the living experience through training so as to emerge from the ideas that suggest to them that they have taken in the idea completely and that they will succeed in application without attending to the fact that they are with different, varied pupils with their movements and their questions.. A teacher needs the experimental training method that places them face to face with reality so that through their experience they may come to know the nature of the weakness in their make-up, the kinds of effective and discouraging methods, and the best method of entering the pupils' feelings and their minds, so that readiness for the new comes through living experience and not through abstract ideas that leave no mark in moving pupils' minds and hearts.”
He referred to preparing the curricula and the contexts of building an effective curriculum, saying: “Let us cooperate, dear ones, so that the curricula of Al-Mabarrat's schools and their educational programmes may be interactive, echoing the age's needs and observing the criteria of quality and standard for differentiated teaching; so that they may be flexible, engaging curricula that make the learner a partner in producing knowledge rather than a consumer - curricula suited to learners with learning difficulties and special needs.”
Fadlallah enumerated the qualities of Al-Mabarrat's teacher, saying: “They are committed, creative and persevering; they have leadership skills and a spirit of initiative and hold fast to the principle of justice.. Their language is easy to take in; they store and organize information.. Their watch is precise for keeping time, with effective training packages for a well-mastered preparation reinforced with every clarification; physical fitness that allows them to move and to stand for long; they build good relationships with those they train; they are far from arrogance and vanity; they follow their Lord in their calm dialogue with the one who errs - a dialogue without anger or harshness, a dialogue in which they give the one who errs the chance to apologize after listening to them and accepting their apology. They note the diversity among the participants: the shy, the cooperative, the positive, the dull, the negative, the disruptive one who hunts for questions, the arrogant, the talkative; and they have the motivation to learn and to train and the motivation to change and develop the reality of the work, so as to be committed, to persevere and to show cooperation, in addition to a love of learning.”
Fadlallah concluded: “Words from the heart to you, teacher of Al-Mabarrat, heir of Adam in nature, in conduct and in the way of life. Over the pages of your book the letters of glory and the words of honour fall prostrate before the greatness of your gifts.. All the names of fidelity, purity and pride were taught to you by the blessing of the Lord of heaven, so that in the fields of challenge you were the master of the arena, and your palm is raised in the heights of loftiness and the summits of peaks - because you walked with God's eye upon you.”
