Thursday, April 10, 2014

Stronger Than Slander

"Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it." - Lincoln

The other day a student visited the math tutoring lab. She was generally a frustrated student with impatience to read her text book and a strong expectation that I would tell her the answers to her quiz. My encouragement for her to discover the answers on her own was met with disgruntled mumbling to another student and sarcastic laughter as I walked away. No one likes to be mocked. But to yield to her pressure would set a bad example for students, and hurt them in the long run due to the lack of independence. In this case right made might, as I sloughed off the potential frustration with the knowledge that good work was being done that would make any mockery harmless.

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