“The highest result of education is tolerance.”
This quote is by Helen Keller, who when she was 19 months old had an illness that caused her to become blind and deaf. With the assistance and companionship of her teacher, Anne Sullivan, Helen learned to read, write, and speak, and eventually she became a famous author, speaker, and philanthropist who positively affected the lives of many people.
Tolerance, along with empathy, compassion, and courage, is a quality that each one of us should strive to develop. Those four qualities, although not synonymous, have a connection with each other. When we have empathy for other people, we are able to have a sense of what they are experiencing and of their feelings related to what they are experiencing. This helps us to be tolerant of our differences. Having compassion for others works in a similar way. And sometimes it takes courage to be tolerant of people who have different viewpoints, priorities, and traditions from ours, such as when our being tolerant in certain situations is not accepted by friends or family members.
When I first read Keller’s quote, I thought of her use of the word education as referring to learning that takes place in school. It is important that children be exposed to examples of tolerance throughout their elementary and secondary schooling. Having teachers who are tolerant, reading stories where the characters show this quality, and learning in history classes about people who were tolerant in the past helps students to learn to have tolerance.
But I also thought about education in the broader sense, for all of us have opportunities to learn each day of our lives. The words and actions of our parents and other people who influenced us when we were children and teens; the interactions we have with others as adults; the reading we do—whether it be news articles, novels, or other genres. All are sources of education and provide possibilities of learning about people who model tolerance in their words and actions.
It concerns me and many other people that being tolerant isn’t valued by some people. As much as I appreciate the numerous positive aspects of the internet, one of its negative aspects is the presence of websites where intolerant views are expressed, often based on ignorance of the truth, misinformation, and/or lies. This is one of many reasons we need to be watchful of what children and teens are viewing and to make possible activities and books and other alternatives to being online. And to do the same for ourselves.
Although much of value can be and is gained as a result of education in its various forms, I agree with Helen Keller that learning to be tolerant is a very valuable result.