Every year, the 5th of September in India marks a special day for students and educators alike and that is Teachers’ Day. Let me begin with a humble request for all dear teachers and students to please don’t treat Teachers’ Day just a day as are other celebration days and don’t consider it simply another date on the calendar to aspire for material gifts from innocent students. And please discourage the gift culture; it will erode the teacher student relationship.
Ironically some teachers are pressing or asking for gifts on this day. It is just a day to ask one’s self about the ethics being fulfilled while entering the class room, imparting knowledge, inculcating values, enriching characters, toning thoughts, shaping minds and building nations and futures. We can wish at each other through a heartfelt note, a thoughtful gift, or simply a word of thanks to show how much they mean to us
Therefore, let’s understand that a teacher is not just someone who stands in front of a board and flows the information to a learner or instructs them to do a particular exercise. A teacher is a mentor, a guide, a counselor, a facilitator, a career planner, a leader, and of course a best friend of the symbiotic teacher student relationship. The influence of a teacher transcends the boundaries of the classroom and an ideal teacher not only teaches a lesson, but his role lasts a lifetime, and his/her words resonate in the minds of students during pivotal moments of their lives. A teacher’s guidance helps to discern fact from fiction, encourages critical thinking, and instills a love for learning. A teacher is a perfect role model and deserves the best of the societal honour.
A good teacher often goes beyond the prescribed syllabus and keeps no stone unturned to imbibe best moral education and life skills amongst the students. It is the teacher who recognizes a student’s potential and pushes him/her to achieve through a guided career planning and counseling approach besides the routine teaching-learning process. Thus, a teacher has a profound impact on a student’s life, and a student must recognize this and inculcate honour and respect forever for his/her teacher.
On this Teachers’ Day, through this piece of writing, let me honor and celebrate all those incredible individuals who have taught me, and guided my personal and professional development from day 1 of my schooling till date. I feel proud to be a teacher made by a teacher.
Certainly, an ideal teacher must possess some important qualities like patience, knowledge, effective communication skills, adaptability, empathy, punctuality, enthusiasm, equity, learning pursuit, etc. Good teachers continually update their knowledge and teaching methods. An ideal teacher keeps a class in order and engaged, which is a key to create a conducive learning environment. A perfect teacher upholds ethical standards and recognizes and values the diversity of students’ backgrounds, which helps to create an inclusive classroom. At the same time a teacher faces a variety of challenges in the classroom in terms of student diversity and an ideal teacher evolves to find effective solutions and best pedagogy to all such challenges. The importance of a teacher extends beyond the confines of a classroom. In short, a best teacher always strives to improve and adapt to the needs of his/her students.
In today’s rapidly changing world due to internet and technological interventions, a teacher is posed with new challenges. However, even if the information is now at everyone’s fingertips, teacher’s role is still pivotal and more significant because the in-house classroom environment that moulds a student, enables him/her to differentiate between right and wrong, and to approach life challenges with resilience and creativity through the effective life skills are only learnt under the umbrella of an effective teacher, who maintains an impartial and equitable classroom ambience.
A teacher is a respectable position in a society and the societal approach towards a teacher should be superior and should not be devalued at the cost of respect shown towards medical or civil services or engineering. But at the same time, a teacher must enter the profession of teaching only by choice. Teaching is not merely a means of earning; it is an essence of burning to enlighten others. A teacher must be in total conformity with the ethics while teaching, setting question papers to assess his/her students, evaluating his/her students. A teacher must confirm to the basic standards of teaching and learning and not merely fulfill the essentials of information collector and provider. And to me a teacher must be the follower of a symbiotic student-teacher relationship and must fit into its acronyms viz. Talented, Equitable, Approachable, Capable, Honest, Ethical, Researcher.
(The writer teaches Zoology at Islamia College of Science and Commerce (Autonomous), Srinagar)
