4 Lessons for teachers from Dumbledore

Graduated from Hogwarts – School of Magic and Wizardry – Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore was born in 1881, he was a very applied student on his early career years, he discovered seven usages of dragon’s blood, defeated Grindwald who was the most terrible dark wizard of his time and had also been recommended to become the Minister of Magic Minestry, however he chose to be a Teacher!

Ok, we know it’s a hard CV to beat, but above all Dumbledore was a Teacher, an awesome one.

The character of Harry potter’s saga has been considered by many the most remarkable character throughout the serie, the writer herself said he was her favorite character. His words not only inspered many people but also put many of us to reconsider our lives’ perspectives about love, friendship, fears and above all: our dreams.

I selected 4 of my favorite Dumbledore’s quotes that I think remind us – teachers and learners – of skills we all should have and we all should be teaching our students.

Hope you all enjoy 🙂

1. Patience when dealing with different generations

“Youth can not know how age thinks and feels, but old men are guilty if they forget what it is to be young.” — Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

As we get older and busier we tend to forget how scary it was to be a child or a teenager, we even say things like “what are you complaining about?”; We forget how scary it was to choose a career back to college times, or the nausea when going to that scary class on Moday or things even more simple like the fear of dark places, fear of monsters under the bed or even the fear of not following a group of friends.

Dumbledore puts us to reflect what is the usage of getting older if we can’t remember our own past experiences in order to have a rapport when dealing with young people?

2. Dealing with Diversity

“Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open.” — Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

In a world where we’re still struggling against racism, xenophobia, social inequality and many other discriminations, It has became a 21st Century Skill to deal with diversity and intercultural situations.

Dumbledore really sums up what we should be adding to our behaviour and teaching practices, no matter what, when or who, once our ideal is a better world, with less poverty, less prejudice and less barries, concepts like religion, colour, gender, or tastes shouldn’t set us apart.

There is even a research led by the University of Modena claiming that reading Harry Potter can improve childen and teenager’s intercultural skills

If you want to check out the research, just click on the link below:

Scientific American : Why you should read Harry Potter

3. Teamwork

“We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.” – Harry Potter and the Globet Fire

This is clearly and obsviously a 21st Century Skill, although many business people have been talking and writing about It, it’s a skill hard to develop.

It envolves not only putting people together and telling them what to do at the same time, It envolves understanding each other’s differences, each other’s expertises in order to use each skill that each member of the group has in order to produce the best that a community can. Alone we’ve got only our skills, together we’ve got everyone’s skills.

4. Character

“We must all face the choice between what is right, and what is easy.” — Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Cheating in a test, cheating in a relationship or maybe just cheating your yourself about a diet, cheating has became a normal behaviour in politicians all around the World.

What many of us forgot is: cheating is always the weak choice, the easy choice, you don’t want to put effort on studying ? You go there and cheat on the test. The easier, but for sure not the right one.

Here comes Dumbledore reminding us to “face” our choices and stick to what we believe.

So…

You don’t have to be an old genius ir wizard to promote these skills among your students and collegues, as J.K. Rowling said on her Havard Speech “We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.“

Text by: Lucas Anselmo