Change, we all know, is the only certainty. Anything that does not change ceases to exist. Time and circumstances make every easy task difficult and every difficult task easy. Teaching as a profession has undergone a transformation as well. It’s challenges change and It is no longer simple or everybody’s cup of tea. It is very complex task now as It is filled with challenges that demand new tools, methods, and strategies which a teacher must adopt to prevail in this profession, make it fruitful, and maintain its sanctity. It’s existence stands on dedication, seriousness, knowledge, morality and patience.
Teaching is a sacred profession, but being a teacher and keeping its sacredness intact is very challenging in this digital age, where both teacher and student are exposed to an immoral world that erodes moral and ethical boundaries and blurs the difference of age, an unnecessary mingling of teacher and student occurs that spoils its sanctity and credibility. Childhood is lost, and children are frantic due to digital content that distracts them from their purpose and indulges them in trivialities that waste their precious time. Keeping these challenges in view, how should teachers celebrate Teacher’s Day and what should it offer To them is is question that we all need to address.
Teacher’s Day, I believe, is an opportunity for teachers to reconsider their role and responsibility. It is a day when teachers, like an audit in finances, must make self-assessments of their profession — their knowledge, wisdom, creativity, teaching methods, and more. It is a day for self‑introspection, to understand how successful they have been as teachers and how their teaching has affected the lives of students.
A teacher, as an architect of a student’s life, plays a serious role in shaping intellect and giving orientation to life. The teacher is the underlying structure of society. It is he who constructs society as it is. His students are the inhabitants of that society, and his ideas give birth to values and principles that unite and bind them together.
A good teacher produces good students, and good students build a good society based on truth, unity ,justice, and peace. The teacher is so pivotal that his teaching is reflected in society; he builds its culture and civilization at the foundational level. He is the source of values, manners, etiquette, and propriety. The whole society stands on his shoulders. He is at its core, and his teaching either constructs or destroys it.We dwell in an age of moral crisis. With every passing day, the gap between good and bad diminishes, and this has crept into the educational system as well. Both teacher and student are now victims.
We see how teaching as a sacred profession is losing its sanctity. I do not make generalizations, but we frequently hear of shameful episodes occuring in schools where both teacher and student are unfortunately involved. Teacher’s Day must remind us of the sanctity of our profession, revive it, and help us maintain it through every challenge. The teacher–student relationship needs to be reconsidered and reinterpreted. It must be confined to academics only, to avoid immoral and unethical episodes.
On Teacher’s Day, teachers must re-evaluate their profession and transform themselves so that their teaching skills improve and become more productive for students. They must keep themselves abreast with new trends of knowledge to cater their students better and prepare them well for future challenges. On this day, they must deliberate on what they teach and how they teach. They must reconsider the content they impart, the values they instill, and the principles they cultivate in students. Hazrat Ali has famously said: “Inculcate in yourself first what you intend to inculcate in others.” We must understand that students learn more from our behavior than from our words. They learn more outside the classroom — how we interact, how we treat them, how we speak — than inside it. Our character is more important than our degrees. It affects students practically, and they imitate our behavior.
The writer can be reached at azaadbhat28@gmail.com.
