On Doing What One Ought

One of the joys of living the academic life is the process of discovery and rediscovery that is so much a part of one’s work. This summer, I have been re-reading The Pedagodfathers: The Lords of Education and was impressed and touched that the author dedicated the book

“To those teachers and administrators who serve with the hope that their students will learn that success is measured by whether one does what one ought to do rather than by how high one rises or by what one acquires” (p. v).

The words were a “gift” to me, so I pass them along to you, gentle reader.

Clearly, we need to prepare professionals to know what they ought to do, and to do it. And we need to hold ourselves to the same principled standard.  This raises important questions, however, about how we determine our moral obligations and the difficult process of weighing the cost of pursuing these responsibilities against compelling “practical” demands.  It seems to me that one implication is that we need to preserve a place for philosophy and philosophical discussion within every professional education curriculum.

— EdProf

Reference

Simpson, D. (1994). The Pedagodfathers: The Lords of Education. Calgary, Alberta, Canada: Detselig.