History teachers

Tonight, Robert was laying on the ground next to my lounge, quietly. 

Seeing he was not active, I asked, “Don’t you want to know anything more?”

“I am thinking,” Robert said and continued to be quiet. A few minutes later, he said, “I can’t think of anything. Perhaps you choose by yourself to tell me.”

“Well,” I poured tea into my cup and took a sip before I started, “when I was living in my ex-master’s house, one day I heard his younger son ask his mother why the students needed to study history. His mother said she didn’t know. Then he said one day he went to study in the class of a teacher at his school. That teacher said that the reason all students needed to learn about history was to know which country invaded their own country and they had to take revenge. The next day, he went to enroll in another class, it was the same subject but with a different teacher. That teacher said to his students that the reason everyone needed to learn about history was to find what had happened and what the mistakes people in ancient times had done in order to get understanding and to not repeat it again even if it was the war. After telling, his mother asked who he thought was right; he said he didn’t think who was right or wrong, he just agreed with the second teacher because he had the same idea as him.”

“I think that young guy was right.”

“Well,” I said after I took another sip, “what I want to tell you is each person has their own point of view. However you have to be careful when you listen to someone who you or a group of people consider as a person who is in a position to give a speech or as your guide because some of them might confuse their own opinion with the opinion of what they are talking about and lead the listeners to wrong understanding. So, when you hear something from someone, please listen but don’t believe it, you must search for more information and opinion from other people until you have enough data to make a conclusion.”