TEACHING BEYOND THE TEXTBOOK

In 2015, during an organizational behavior lecture at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a student’s baby began crying in the middle of class. Unable to find childcare that day, the mother felt embarrassed and immediately stood up to leave so she would not disrupt her peers.

Professor Sydney Engelberg had a completely different response. Instead of letting her walk out, Engelberg walked over, gently took the crying baby into his own arms, and carried him back to the front of the classroom. He calmed the child down and continued lecturing without missing a beat.

A student snapped a photograph of the moment, and within days, the image went viral worldwide as an extraordinary act of empathy. Yet to Engelberg, a grandfather of five, it was simply business as usual. He had long encouraged parents in his graduate courses to bring their children to class rather than skip their education. In his lectures, babies were always welcome, breastfeeding was completely fine, and a crying child never meant a parent had to forfeit their learning.

For Professor Engelberg, education extended far beyond the syllabus written on the whiteboard. He believed students learned just as much from watching how a teacher acts in real-life situations. That afternoon, his students received two valuable lessons: one on organizational behavior, and another on compassion that required no textbook at all.