By Richard K Munro

For Memorial Day 2024

“What is it, namely, that connects the temporal and eternity, what else but love, which for that very reason is before everything and remains after everything is gone.”

Works of Love, Søren Kierkegaard

In all its varied forms -C.S. Lewis wrote of the Four Loves- love is the raison d’etre of man’s life. Love is, perhaps, the most powerful force we encounter in ourselves and in others.

The Great Teacher said, “do not judge, and you will not be judged; do no condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” (Luke 6:37).

We are all quick to judge others; as a teacher it is my job to judge the progress and performance of a student. I have long noted that a student’s seriousness and behavior have a direct relationship to his or her learning or lack of it. Loud disturbances -and electronic devices-disrupt and distract us from the learning process.

But not all can be known.

All tests and all reports are merely superficial dipsticks.

Of the things that are tenuously known in this world what could be more unknown and uncertain that a man’s inner character?

We must, as adults, and as teachers, exercise forbearance. We must tolerate misbehavior -especially yesterday’s misbehavior- and we must forgive. For in the final analysis it is not about us (the teachers); it is about them (the students), the class and ultimately society.

These are the cohorts we send out and it is they to whom will pass the banner and the torch which will burn long after we are dust.

Lao Tzu said: The good man is the teacher of the bad and the bad man is the lesson of the good.”

I used to ask my father why there were such bad and cruel people in the world. He responded “to teach us never to be SOB’s like them. This is the only life you have this side of paradise. Don’t be an SOB.” (Thomas Munro, jr 1915-2003) ‘

Although people may appear vile and repulsive who can know their hidden motives? As long as a person does not harm another(and respects the rights of others to learn) we can tolerate small failings.

Mr. Sullivan was my father’s 11th grade English teacher at Manual Training High School in Brooklyn, NY. My father had come to New York at age 12 from Scotland in 1927.

But on very hot days in June -there was no air conditioning- sometimes my father fell asleep.

Mr. Sullivan had angrily chastised my father for having dark stains on his homework until he was told that they were blood splatters from work. My father often completed his homework during his break in the middle of the night. After he learned my father was working nights in the slaughterhouse (where stands the UN today) Mr. Sullivan didn’t complain or awaken my father when he (occasionally) fell asleep 7th period. My father never missed a day of school and always turned in his homework and did well on exams.

Despite the odds my father persevered and graduated from high school (the first ever to do so in his family). Later he rose from the ranks to become an officer in the US Army and after the war obtained his MBA from NYU on the GI Bill. He was , by the way, forever thankful to America and FDR for his opportunities.

I only saw my father cry in public twice. Once was when we went to the Scottish War Memorial in Edinburg in 1967. There in big silver books were listed the names of the dead. Many of his schoolmates and teammates from Glasgow had been killed in action while serving with the 51st Division at Dunkirk or in North Africa. When he saw there names he could not help but break down weeping. “Rifles and some dynamite against tanks! If I hadn’t come to America I would have been with them. And maybe my name would be in the book! But no children of mine would ever come to see the name of their father! No just one life or a dozen or a hundred were lost but thousands.”

I remember the Scottish people there comforted my father and said many kind things. They talked about 1914-1919 and 1939-1945. Many had family members or friends who had been killed. It remains an indelible memory.