A baby had started to cry during the organizational behavior class of lecturer Dr. Sydney Engelberg, his daughter, Sarit Fishbaine, told BuzzFeed News.
Fishbaine explained that her dad, a South African native who has taught for 45 years, teaches for the Master’s degree program, so he has a lot of older students.
“There’s a lot of young moms and a lot of them have babies, and he encourages them to just bring their babies to class,” she said.
The mom stood up to leave with the crying infant, but instead Engelberg took the baby in his arms, calmed it down, and “continued the class as if nothing had happened,” Fishbaine wrote on a viral Facebook post of the photo.
“My dad just loves kids and loves babies, he has five grandchildren, so he just takes the baby,” Fishbaine told BuzzFeed News. “He’s the one that’s in motion, he’s walking around the class. So he just takes the baby and continues teaching.”
She added that it’s “not something unusual” for her 67-year-old social psychologist dad, since so many of his female students have brought babies to class, and sometimes even breastfeed.
“This is what I call an excellent organizational behavior lesson! Dad, You’re the best!” Fishbaine wrote.
Engelberg doesn’t understand why the picture has made such an impact on people, because it’s “so natural for him,” his daughter said.
“The way he sees the concept of getting education is not only learning the dry facts that you need to learn in class,” she added, “but also learning values. And that’s the very important message that my dad wants to endow to the world.”
