‘Gooood morniiiiiing, Teeeaacherrrrr!’ This chorus is the first thing that comes to my mind as I write this article on the morning of 5th September. In the narrative of our life, this is that one chorus which is constant. So, for once, think about a world without teachers. As hard as I think, a world without teachers is something that is impossible to imagine. The whole education system would collapse. Our whole being will be undefined; life will be a chaotic mess. I don’t know how the world would be if ever the teachers vanish from the story of our lives. I just know that our story would be incomplete and a sad one.
After our parents, teachers are the ones who have the strongest influence on our lives and personality. Sometimes they influence us in a way which completely transforms us. Yes, we hate homework or assignment deadlines and more so when they write ‘redo’! We resent all those times when they put us on spot in front of the whole class for an answer which we didn’t know. Sometimes, the following insult session and Parent-Teacher meeting was nothing short of brutal! I know they scared us, rebuked us, hit us, punished us (though, I’m not trying to justify or referring here to the 3rd degree punishments), flunked us, insulted us, hit us with a chalk and other things in the book of ‘101 reasons to hate teachers’. We have our personal Professor Snapes and Dumbledores; we dread or love them on the basis of our experiences. But, what is important for us to understand is that in the end, Professor Snape was also not the villain of the story. Whatever he did, he did it for Harry.
Thus, there is nothing like a good, bad, beautiful or ugly teacher. It’s all the situations and our perceptions which make us classify them. The significant lesson is to understand that teachers/professors are also human beings and not flawless. For some child, a certain teacher can be the best and for the other, a personal devil, especially sent by Satan from the underworld; we often see the world in binary of black or white and so does the figure of a teacher in good or evil. We need to see the shades of grey. We need to see how sometimes they have to do what they do. None us would be reading this had it not been for those teachers who relentlessly helped us read and taught us a language which was not our mother tongue.
Always keep in mind that for every Doloros Umbridge from Harry Potter, there is a Mr. Kobayashi, the headmaster in Totto Chan: The Little Girl at the Window who would say,“Having eyes, but not seeing beauty; having ears, but not hearing music; having minds, but not perceiving truth; having hearts that are never moved and therefore never set on fire. These are the things to fear,” and help slay all our other dragons of fear which shackle our dreams and aspirations. These are the kinds of professors, headmasters, teachers, mentors that we need to remember and celebrate today.
Take a moment, go down the memory lane and remember all those teachers/professors who touched your life, taught you valuable lessons which were not a part of textbooks but shaped your personality. Even find that friend who always became your teacher before the exams and helped you pass. Thank all those teachers who had unwavering faith in you and motivated you whenever you made a mistake or couldn’t pick yourself up after a failure. Celebrate teachers like Miss Stacy (Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery) who asked you whenever you were having a bad day to think, “Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it.” And most importantly, teach someone who doesn’t or didn’t ever have the privilege to know who a teacher is. Keep spreading the light and knowledge around this Teachers Day.
Nidhi Panchal
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Image Credits: www.icr.org
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