Teachers' Day: It's time true teachers stand up

04 September, 2012

In India, Teachers' Day is celebrated on 5th September which is also the birthday of Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan who was a great teacher and former president of India. Teachers' Day is celebrated as a mark of tribute to teachers who shape future citizens of the country by developing them as thinking and discerning individuals capable of reforming society.

A TRUE teacher makes learning a self-fulfilling experience by fostering and nurturing learning which is innate in human beings. They promote autonomous learning. It is often said the best teacher makes himself or herself dispensable to students by transferring learning responsibilities to them.

According to Albert Einstein, the supreme art of the teacher is to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. Therefore, a true teacher regards his or her students as co-participants in construction of knowledge.

William Butler Yeats says that education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire. Keeping this in view, a true teacher kindles a desire among his or her students to discover and reconstruct knowledge.

"The average teacher explains complexity; the gifted teacher reveals simplicity," says Robert Brault. This implies that a true teacher demystifies the learning process and makes learning ordinary.

Teaching is a three-fold learning process. A teacher has to learn before teaching as well as during teaching since the classroom processes are dynamic and there is a pronounced diversity among students. Moreover, a true teacher has to learn after the lesson is over by self-reflecting and improving himself or herself as a practitioner of teaching profession.

Helen Caldicott deems teachers as the most responsible and important members of society because their professional efforts affect the fate of the earth.

Will true teachers stand up?

Happy Teachers' Day to you!!