^ Theology and Philosophy of Education
CD
2023, vol. 2, no. 2, editorial, p. 1-3
Editorial
The Responsibility of Educators
Zuzana Svobodová
Verses from a poem by T.S. Eliot were at the end of an email I just received; a poem about a
dialogue, about care for the soul. The author of the email was reminded of this poem by texts
published in our journal. This is one clear, concrete or specific proof that our journal finds its
readers. Each author can feel joy on such occasions. When we help to connect authors and
readers, we co-create something new. This newness, which was never before, is a possibility
that we saw at the beginning of this journal. We saw this as a possibility; it means, in the future,
as something that has been not here in reality yet, but can be-come. We have choices, liberum
arbitrium, but we also have something more than that. We have a responsibility that comes to
us. Where from? Responsibility comes as a response. As human beings, we have an opportunity
to be responsorial: we can give a re-sponse (from Latin responded) or an-swer (see
etymology). The more we are open to responding, the more we have chances to choose from
choices.
Educators are beings who can educate, cultivate, or elevate those who are entrusted to them. Is
this an exceptional responsibility? Yes, it is, because of trust given to them. Where there is
trust, there is no fear. If the educational process contains fear, we are - or we should be - not
trustful. Therefore, a special responsibility comes from the reality of being an educator because
an educator was called - i.e., a word came to him with a meaningful purpose, in order to ... namely
to care, to be there for others who can and should learn. If students or pupils learn fear,
they cannot trust. A community of cooperative and caring people cannot develop in a trust-less
environment. Care for the soul is imaginable only if there is trust. Care for the soul is the
superior responsibility that we have, especially if we are educators. Educators are responsible
for the trust. But wait, T.S. Eliot exclaims for waiting: wait, because you do not know for sure,
you are not ready to know in the fullness, you are the person on the way with the task to learn
to wait on the ultimate.
Meanwhile, in between, that is, in this life, in our times, we are learners, although some of us
are also educators or teachers. We are learners of how to be trustworthy. In the first text of this
issue, Stuart Nicolson gives us a good orientation for such learning by drawing from the roots
in his article Original Apologetics. In the second article, Jana Jičínská analyses the inspirational
speech of Josef Zvěřina given at the University of Tubingen. Andrej Čaj a follows with his
article presenting John Henry Newman's Idea of a University as a critique of Bentham's
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Svobodová, Z.
thoughts on education. Lukáš Malý discusses the topic of howpaideia can accompany a person
throughout his life. Josef Hejny examines the possibility of reaching ontological closeness by
technology in his article about e-learning during the Covid-19 pandemic. How the curriculum
needs to and could be up-to-date with the demographic dynamics of the classroom while
incorporating different perspectives and cultures in its approach is explored in the article by
Luke Fenech. In translation, the responsorial relation to the other is presented in the text written
by the Czech theologian Josef Zvěřina (1913-1990).
The above-mentioned verses from T.S. Eliot were six verses from the poem "East Coker",
which was published in Four Quartets. The whole third part from Eliot's "East Coker", the
second poem from the Four Quartets goes as follows:
0 dark dark dark They all go into the dark,
The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant,
The captains, merchant bankers, eminent men ofletters,
The generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers,
Distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees,
Industrial lords andpetty contractors, all go into the dark,
And dark the Sun and Moon, and the Almanach de Gotha
And the Stock Exchange Gazette, the Directory of Directors,
And cold the sense and lost the motive of action.
And we all go with them, into the silentfuneral,
Nobody'sfuneral, for there is no one to bury.
1 said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,
And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
And the bold imposingfacade are all being rolled away—
Or as, when an underground train, in the tube, stops too long between stations
And the conversation rises and slowlyfades into silence
And you see behind everyface the mental emptiness deepen
Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about;
Or when, under ether, the mind is conscious but conscious of nothing
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hopefor the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But thefaith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not readyfor thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.
You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.
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^ The Responsibility of Educators
0
Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to getfrom where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at whatyou do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess whatyou do notpossess
You must go by the way ofdispossession.
In order to arrive at whatyou are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thingyou know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.
Dear readers, I wish you to find in this issue of Theology and Philosophy ofEducation a risen
dialogue and a meaningful silence to motivate you to good and joyful action,
Zuzana Svobodova
References
Eliot, T. S. 1996. Four Quartets. London: Penguin.
Harper Family LLC. 2001-2023. Etymonline. Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper.
Accessed December 19, 2023. https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=answer.
PhDr. Zuzana Svobodová, Ph.D.
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5151-056X
Charles University
Theology and Philosophy of Education
editor in chief
svobodova@tape. academy
https://tape.academy DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.l0413218 3