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William Arthur Ward once wrote “The mediocre teacher tells.
The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demon-
strates. The great teacher inspires.” Bachir Copti was a great
teacher.
Even before joining IC in
1978, Mr. Copti had
already accumulated a
good deal of experience in
several fields. He started off
in journalism, and then
worked as a government
employee for many years.
He was not content, how-
ever, and it was not until he
took up teaching at
“Choueifat
International
School” that Mr. Copti was
fulfilled. “Teaching is not a
hobby, but a message; it is
the only profession which
directly benefits others.”
Twenty-two years later he
joined IC.
That was in 1978, when Mr.
Bachir Copti came on
board as an Arabic
Philosophy teacher. He was reputed to be “a teacher who
rules his class with an iron hand,” the hand that thumps the
table for attention, but also the hand that cultivates learning.
Yet his was not the strictness of a tyrant, but of an educator
who is both demanding and caring. Mr. Copti cared that his
students learn. In this respect, classroom regulations were
simple: he is here to teach and they are here to be taught. But
what happens after class?
Beyond the classroom doors, another relationship was
formed, that of friendship. Mr. Copti was often consulted by
students on issues unrelated to classroom lessons, and his
approachability is the reason why most of his students remain
in contact with him to this day.
Mr. Copti’s memory of his students remains quite vivid, and
he recalls a few “heated” incidents that occurred during his
tenure at IC. In a particularly memorable instance, one of his
students in the philosophy section was sitting for an exam
with his head very nearly on the table and his palm cupped
over his ear. After a while, Mr. Copti began to suspect that the
boy might have been hiding a tape recorder, and so he went
over to the boy’s desk and asked him for it. Mr. Copti was
right; the boy had recorded an entire lecture on the recorder
and hid it in his underpants! The student was sent to the direc-
tor’s office, and was given a “zero.”
Yet every teacher was once a student,
and Mr. Copti does not deny the fact
that even he once “helped out” a friend
on an exam. The reason, he explains,
was that his friend was stuck on a word
and simply could not go on with the
exam. Not one to forget such experi-
ences, Mr. Copti, after he became a
teacher and began administering tests
himself, would occasionally leave the
classroom for a few moments. Then,
just as suddenly, he would pop back in,
just in time to prevent more then a
word or two being swapped between
the students. When asked to recall
more about such occurrences, Mr.
Copti waxes philosophic (as befits a
man with his job description) and
muses, “The memory of a human brain
is not perfect; it has been established
that even the best memory suffers at
least a few gaps.”
Today, Mr. Bachir Copti is retired and
lives with his wife and son in Beirut. His three daughters are
married and living abroad. He visits IC and his former col-
leagues on a regular basis. Mr. Copti loves reading (the man
devours all types of books, from novels to biographies),
watching sports and movies on television, and writing poetry.
In fact, Mr. Copti is a writer himself, having authored the phi-
losophy book Tarikh al Uloum ind al Arab [History of the
Sciences Among the Arabs], long required studying for those
seeking a Lebanese Baccalaureate II.
He might not have the answer to the meaning of life, but
Bachir
Copti’s
work as a philos-
ophy teacher at
IC gave meaning
and purpose to us
all!
Mr. Bachir Copti:
The Philosopher in our Midst
8
Mr. Bachir Copti in 1984.
Mr. Bachir Copti today.
Bachir Copti cutting the cake in the Reunion of the class of 1994
on June 12th 2004.