A Passage that spoke to me.

The following is an excerpt from The Social Neuroscience of Education that I found particularly resonant. Tell me what you think:

Filling a position once held by tribal elders, teachers can guide their students to become the heroes of their own stories. At the same time, teachers must also become heroes by overcoming prejudice, ignorance, and the bureaucratic status quo to make learning happen despite the forces that may be working against them... 

Carl Jung said that the answers to our most important questions are to be found in the shadow. The shadow is the repository of our own pain and shame; hidden with it is the pain of our families and the demons of our inner lives. The heroic teacher acknowledges the pain, suffering, hypocrisy, and lack of fairness in the world. Because you can't completely banish the shadow, you must learn to develop a relationship with it. If the shadow can be acknowledged and included as part of the emotional reality of the classroom, the teacher becomes transformed into a guide on the path to wisdom. Wisdom is knowledge mixed with compassion and presented in a manner that helps others to heal and grow. In other words, wisdom is knowledge in the service of others.  

In order for teachers to become guides, they need to be familiar with their own shadows, which will allow their students to confront their own inner demons. Because a teacher who adheres to unfair rules will be seen as too insecure to be a guide, a heroic teacher must be brave enough to break the rules in service of his or her students. A successful guide snatches victory from the jaws of defeat, gaining freedom from determinism. The teacher invites the student to take a journey out of the narrow confines of his or her life into a new world beyond limitations of the neighborhood, family, and culture. (199-200)