A teacher is someone who paid attention to the path through which they learned… and became enchanted by it. That enchantment was so profound that it filled their heart with love, leaving them no other choice but to speak, to share, to teach. For the mouth speaks from the fullness of the heart. Thus, teaching transcends the notion of an end in itself. To teach is to express the love born from the wonder of learning.
Alexandre Street, October 15, 2018
Below is my tribute to some of the great teachers who have shaped my life: Alvaro Veiga, Cristiano Fernandes, Mario Veiga Pereira, Luiz Augusto Barroso, and Sergio Granville. With special affection, to Jorge Jacó, Monfort, and Carlos Boia (unfortunately, I don’t have photos of the latter two), my mathematics, physics, and biology teachers at Colégio Isa Prates between 1994 and 1996 (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). Jorge Jacó challenged me with respect and care, in exactly the measure I could bear and still strive. Boia believed in me, and when he once expressed that belief in front of the whole class, he made me believe in myself. Monfort was something more profound: he changed my whole life. He believed in a student who had only ever seen mathematics as a set of rules for calculating without meaning or real purpose, and took the time to explain things in a way and through a channel I could understand: by drawing, discussing, and reconstructing the ideas from the ground up, right in front of my eyes. In doing so, he unlocked in me a true love for modeling the real world with mathematics, for thinking through it, and for creating new ideas with it. Their respect, belief, and care gave me a pathway that ultimately became the foundation for what I now consider my greatest strengths and the basis of all my work.
In Portuguese [original]: O professor é aquele que prestou atenção no caminho pelo qual aprendeu… e se encantou. O seu encantamento foi tal que encheu seu coração de amor, não lhe restando outra alternativa senão falar, contar, ensinar. Pois a boca fala do que o coração está cheio. Assim, ensinar transcende o conceito fim. Ensinar é manifestar o amor causado pelo encantamento de aprender.
