When Cambridge scholar goes wrong

Photo: AFP

I was very disappointed by a letter ('When teachers go wrong', Letters to the Editor, The Daily Star, 11 November, 2003). The writer, in anger, made some personal remarks (the caption of the letter being one) about a respected lady teacher (Rev Angela Robinson) whose only offence was to write, some days earlier, a letter stating some verifiable and statistically correct things about the state of Israel.

Our Cambridge scholar (I assume he is a student there) makes the mistake of thinking that a state and a person are one and the same thing. A state and its administration are not the same thing, just as the USA and President Bush are not identical. Hitler and Yahya are gone but Germany and Pakistan remain. So will remain the USA and the state of Israel even when Bush and Sharon are gone.

The writer's comments about child psychology are ridiculous. Children remember their association but do not always learn from it. Process of learning is something where teachers teach students to pick up good things and distinguish them from the bad and incorrect ones.

Telling good things about Israel does not necessarily teach the students or anyone that what the Israeli administration is doing today is also good. One important fact I know is that the number of scientists that Israel has today is several times higher than the total number of scientists in all the twenty-two Arab countries taken together (UNDP - Arab Human Development Report). What is wrong in telling people about this fact? In fact, we should take lessons from such facts.

I write this to apologise to a teacher who has been unnecessarily and wrongly criticised. I am not sure whether our letter-writer from Cambridge would, in future, be a little more tolerant about other's views and be a little polite before accusing someone.