The Teacher’s Burden
Take up the Teacher’s burden—
Send forth the best ye breed—
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your students’ need
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild—
Your new-caught, sullen children,
Half-cherub and Half-devil
Take up the Teacher’s burden—
In patience to abide,
To quell their childish fancies
And check their rising pride;
By open speech and counsel,
An hundred times made plain.
To mold their raw potential,
And wisdom they will gain
Take up the Teacher’s burden—
The thankless hours of care
To plant the seeds of knowledge
In minds naive and bare;
Amidst their childish prattle,
Their unfledged, aimless gaze—
To lead them through confusion,
And kindle wisdom’s blaze.
Take up the Teacher’s burden—
No tawdry rule or rest,
With stern and kind instruction,
Direct them to the best.
The hearts you fill with courage,
The wills you teach to strive—
To face a world of chaos,
Their spirits you’ll revive.
Take up the Teacher’s burden—
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard—
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:—
“Why brought ye us from ignorance,
Our loved illiterate plight?”
Take up the Teacher’s burden—
Ye dare not stoop to less
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloak your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen students
Shall weigh your Gods and you.
Take up the Teacher’s burden—
In time your toil will show,
The seeds you plant with patience
In young minds start to grow;
And when they stand as leaders,
With wisdom in their sight—
They’ll honor all your guidance,
Your efforts shining bright.
The above parody of Kipling’s White Man’s Burden (what we now call White Saviourism) is partly generated by ChatGPT (I took the prompt output and refined it); interestingly a different AI model (I think Claude) refused to generate for the same prompt:
