The nietzschean model educator

Abstract

Highlight a few excerpts from “Schopenhauer as Educator”, which I deem relevant due to their universal importance. Nietzsche elected Schopenhauer as a model educator because of his original, government-independent mind, whose reflexions are much more about collective than personal interests. Nietzsche stresses that thinkers with such qualities are doomed to solitude, for this is a necessary condition to produce original and creative thinking. He also proposes that philosophers and educators should guide their lives under the same ethical and moral principles they believe in and speak of. This is a sine qua non condition in order to be recognized as genuine role models by their students. Nietzsche lists 12 traits that prevent some teachers and researchers from bettering themselves, from either a scientific or personal perpective, among those the choice of tractable issues as the main focus of their research and always putting their personal interests ahead of broader ones. These traits, which were first identified in German professors and scientists of the 19th century, are recurrently found in most Western universities, including the ones in Brazil.