When you look at the past what do you see? Do you see years of tiring service that were unrewarded; or being barely able to meet the needs of your family with an insufficient pay package while busily juggling classes, exams and corrections; or getting put down by the snobbish ‘success-stories’ from society while struggling to find reasons to continue teaching? Being a teacher is tough in a world that is wired to praise fame, money and ‘success-formulas to make it big’. Perhaps we need to look at success and define what this word means for teachers.
Can you imagine a world without teachers? If there were no teachers, no one would know anything more than what their parents taught them. We would go back to the stone ages because there wouldn’t be any ‘shared universal knowledge bank.’ Even if someone wrote books there would be very few people who would know to read anyway! Helen Caldicott said, "Teachers, I believe, are the most responsible and important members of society because their professional efforts affect the fate of the earth."
Someone rightly said, ‘Teaching is the profession that teaches all the other professions’. (Author Unknown) Teaching is laying down the foundation of society. What teachers give to their students is more than just knowledge, they teach them ways to think, understand, analyze and most importantly – a way to life. "Those who educate children well are more to be honoured than parents, for these only gave life, those the art of living well," said Aristotle.
Throughout the history of the world, there have been many upheavals, revolutions, achievements and also grave mistakes that caused mankind severe grief and loss. The teacher is the only link between those lessons and the current generation. If there were no teachers to interpret these lessons mankind learnt at such a high cost, we might be doomed to repeat the experiences of loss and we would have to keep trying to achieve what was already achieved in the past. Teachers make this world move forward. It is the teacher who inspires good values and makes human beings out of those who are mere flesh and blood.
Henry Brooks Adams said, “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” If we want to know what the future holds for us, we only need to have a look at the quality of the teachers we have around us. Good teachers instil good values, efficiency and higher standards in their students that ultimately is aimed at the betterment of society. Tracy Kidder remarked, “Most teachers have little control over school policy or curriculum or choice of texts or special placement of students, but most have a great deal of autonomy inside the classroom. To a degree shared by only a few other occupations, such as police work, public education rests precariously on the skill and virtue of the people at the bottom of the institutional pyramid.”
Passing on the baton of goodness and virtue in a world torn apart by broken relationships, social unrest and corruption is nothing short of a mammoth task. John Sculley opined, “We expect teachers to handle teenage pregnancy, substance abuse, and the failings of the family. Then we expect them to educate our children.” Teaching takes a lot out of the teacher. “In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years,” said Jacques Barzun. Therefore it is true that, “A good teacher is like a candle - it consumes itself to light the way for others.” (Author Unknown)
If you are a teacher, don’t look down on your role in society. You are of much greater value to the children you teach than you will ever know. A lot of children today live in families where their parents have no time for them. They spend their day in the company of a mindless television set, a servant or an empty house. There are others who have seen or experienced terrible things within their homes or in their vicinity. When their own family and loved ones let them down, it is the affection of a caring teacher that helps them get by through those traumatic years spent at home. One would not be overstating to say that a good teacher saves a child’s faith in humanity and helps them see that humans can be good even when their own life-experience has shown them otherwise.
A teacher is a beacon of light, lighting up and leading the way to a wholesome and fulfilling life. A teacher raises hope in a child that helps him to find the zeal and enthusiasm required to go through with the tough journey of life and come out successfully. Without the inspiration and support of a teacher, a child cannot make it through the maze of life. “The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called "truth,"” said Dan Rather.
Of the many children you teach, there will be many who will move on with life without sharing about what you have done for them. Just like the story of the ten lepers who were healed by Jesus and only one returned to thank Him, there will be only a few who realize the important role you have played in their life. Yet we need to understand that those few are spokespersons for all the others who wouldn’t know how to express a word of gratitude for your contribution to their lives. Carl Jung said, “One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.”
It is important to understand that there are many kinds of teachers. William Arthur Ward explains, “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” However, a teacher who goes beyond the call of duty and speaks value and worth into the lives of her students is a ‘great teacher’ who inspires. It is for this very reason that Karl Menninger said, “What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches.”
As teachers let us take ourselves seriously, let us sow and cultivate within our hearts the inspiration to achieve the highest goals and purposes in our lives and the lives of the students we teach. Our students are with us only for a set time, let us make optimum use of this time, to build them, to entrust them with knowledge and skills and whenever needed to reassure them about their own goodness and the goodness of human kind.
A successful teacher is first a good human being who has a heart that warms up to the needs of her students, she teaches her students not just subjects but also about life; she entrusts her students with skills and abilities to make it through the difficult path of life and come out of it successfully. She juggles the roles of a teacher, mother-figure and friend to perfection while earning the respect of her students. Ultimately a successful teacher is one whose students find inspiration and success because they were taught by her words and her example.
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