Pascal said that we have two choices, act as if God exists or act as if he doesn’t exist. If he does not exist then we have lost nothing by acting as if he does. However if he does exist then we have seriously disadvantaged ourselves by acting as if he did not:
With regards to our teaching we also have two choices, act as if the students can become more intelligent or act as if they cannot. If students cannot become more intelligent then at the very least nothing is lost with us acting as if they can. However if students can become more intelligent then we have seriously disadvantaged them by acting as if they cannot:
