PHILIP BIGLER
1998 National Teacher of the Year
“Civilization begins anew with each child.”
Educational Philosophy
“An old proverb states that ‘Civilization begins anew with each child.’ As an educator, I have found this statement
to be both a vision of optimism as well as a dire warning. On one hand, our students are the intellectual heirs to
Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Newton--the inheritors of a rich legacy of human progress traversing three
millennia. Conversely, if we fail to successfully teach and educate our young people, we are just one generation
removed from barbarism...I now know that human progress is neither inevitable nor preordained and that the very
survival of our United States with its democratic principles and ideals are in our hands.”
“In today’s modern society, we must be voracious reders and I firmly believe that all of us should and must be
reading something substantive each and every day of our lives. The educated person is never bored, never content,
for the miracle of life provides a constant source of wonderment and inquiry. There will always be more to learn
and new things to know.”
On Teaching
“In truth, many in our society denigrate our efforts. Far too many governmental officials rule by poll and anecdote
rather than from courage and conviction; financial reward is conferred upon celebrities, athletes, and speculators
rather than on scholars and saints; intellectual pursuits are rarely valued and few see the relevance in reading
Shakespeare let alone Plato…As a profession, teaching remains one of the truly noble occupations and we are
engaged in a daily struggle against ignorance. It is our fundamental responsibility to show our students the
importance of knowledge and the need to be well versed in history, literature, foreign languages, mathematics, art,,
scinece, and all of the other disciplines that represent the cumulative efforts of human civilization over the last
10,000 years.”
“In Virginia, we are still profoundly influenced by our greatest native, son, Thomas Jefferson. On the simple oblisk
that marks his grave at Monticello, are the three things for which he was most proud--Author of the Declaration of
Independence--that revolutionary document that established the principle of individual liberty; Author of the
Statute for Religious Freedom--a document which gave us the freedom to think differently and abolished
intellectual orthodoxy; and the Founder of the University of Virginia--the first secular college in America.
Jefferson believed that education was crucial to the health and well-being of the nation. In 1818, he wrote, ‘If the
children are untaught, their ignorance and vices will in future life cost us much dearer in their consequences that it
would have done in their correction by a good education.’ And so we have our challenge, to provide our students
with a first rate education to prepare them for the next millineum.”
