When Camus was less than a year old, his father was killed on the battlefield of WWI. He and his older brother were raised by their illiterate, nearly deaf mother and a despotic grandmother, with hardly any prospects for a bright future. In a testament to what happens when education lives up to its highest potential to ennoble the human spirit, a teacher named Louis Germaine saw in young Albert something special and undertook the task of conjuring cohesion and purpose out of the boy — the task of any great mentor. Under his teacher’s wing, Camus came to transcend the dismal cards he had been dealt and began blossoming into his future genius.
—Brain Pickings
Years later, in 1957 when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, Camus wrote this letter to his former teacher:
Dear Monsieur Germain,
I let the commotion around me these days subside a bit before speaking to you from the bottom of my heart. I have just been given far too great an honor, one I neither sought nor solicited. But when I heard the news, my first thought, after my mother, was of you. Without you, without the affectionate hand you extended to the small poor child that I was, without your teaching and example, none of all this would have happened. I don’t make too much of this sort of honor. But at least it gives me the opportunity to tell you what you have been and still are for me, and to assure you that your efforts, your work, and the generous heart you put into it still live in one of your little schoolboys who, despite the years, has never stopped being your grateful pupil. I embrace you with all my heart.
Albert Camus
Wow!
Wow indeed.
http://rummuser.com/tribute-to-a-great-teacher/
http://rummuser.com/corporal-punishment-and-mr-kuruvilla-jacob/
Yes. 🙂
WOW for sure!
brought tears to my eyes.
first to be able to affect one’s life in such a profound way.
and then
to have become that great person and realize the need for gratitude and to recognize the teacher who changed one’s life. how wonderful both are.
It really touched me too.
Great teachers stay in our minds forever. Mine was Miss Reader in 5th grade.
I was lucky enough to have at least three. They are still with me.
A teacher you get on with and admire, and who is intent on developing your talents and abilities, can make a huge difference to your future life. I had a wonderful English teacher in my prep school, who gave me a passion for English, for reading and for writing which has been invaluable to me ever since.
We’re very lucky if we have any. For me it was one who aroused my interest in history.
yes WOW
I can recall no early teacher who has given me a passion…
You do have at least one passion, though. What aroused it?
it was actually my bestie who aroused that art-passion. We were just talking about it a couple of days ago when she came by for an arvo cuppa…
When I was so down after the problems with University – she mentioned this private art school and wondered if that might be a way forward… and so I started there, and yep it’s becoming “me for sure” 🙂
A great honor to the teacher.