From "education by example" to "education by example"

During recess, a teacher overheard a ninth-grade student say to a classmate: “The teacher often tells us to be sympathetic to other people’s problems, but the other day she punished our classmate by making him stand in the sun because he forgot his homework.”

That situation shows that, in that moment, the student may have somewhat lost faith in education , not because of wrong knowledge but because of the discrepancy between what they hear and what they see.

“Education by example” has long been considered a basic ethical principle with teachers demonstrating exemplary behavior, students will have a specific role model to follow. Normative behavior is behavior that is consistent with regulations, laws, or social ethics such as driving in the right lane, not littering, being polite to the elderly... But a normative behavior does not necessarily reflect an internal transformation process. Internalizing norms is the process in which social norms become part of an individual's internal value system when they believe that the behavior is correct, necessary, and voluntarily performed without being monitored or threatened.

Students of Dak Lak Medical College presented flowers to express gratitude to lecturers on Vietnamese Teachers' Day, November 20. Photo: Thanh Huong

In reality, there can be a disconnect between outward behavior and inner beliefs. A person may behave “properly” out of social pressure, fear of punishment, a desire for praise, or simply out of imitation, rather than because they truly believe in the meaning of the behavior. For example, a student may not cheat on an exam because he or she is afraid of being suspended, not because of a sense of academic integrity. This suggests that correct behavior does not necessarily reflect strong inner values.

The challenge in education, then, is not just to “force” people to behave correctly, but to help them understand, believe, and voluntarily behave correctly. This is why many progressive education systems emphasize the role of liberal education, a reflective moral education, where people are invited to dialogue, question, and co-create a system of values instead of simply repeating externally imposed standards. That is when “modeling” becomes a deeper concept than “modeling education”.

Conduct is not simply the expression of proper behavior but the profound presence of a teacher, including inner life and personality. For students, the way teachers face and handle pressure, hurt and show understanding of others can become implicit educational messages that "stay" for a long time in the personality of the learner.

In-person education is the way teachers recreate social structures in the teacher-student relationship, not by imposition but by transformation. In it, learners are not led by rewards or punishments but are awakened by internal motivation, that is, the individual's own need to live well, to learn to understand life, to become a better version of themselves. Different from exemplary education - which is often "shown" on the outside, in-person education is the process of living truly and truly, requiring unity between inner values and social behavior. It is a special form of social capital (trust) that teachers accumulate every day, not by authority, but by a human presence, flawed but kind and trustworthy.

In the context of modern society, students have many channels to access knowledge but lack a place to learn how to live, so the teacher is no longer the one who "communicates", but the one who inspires meaningful life. That is the path from "education by example" to "education by example".

Source: https://baodaklak.vn/giao-duc/202507/tu-giao-duc-lam-guong-toi-than-giao-6e215ac/