If there is anyone other than our parents who plays a really significant role in shaping our character development, it is our teachers. Teachers have been respected throughout history because of their noble mission. They are the architects of a healthy, prosperous and harmonious society because they can help students discover the capabilities and humaneness lying dormant within them and enable them to become good citizens. A good teacher can inspire hope in young minds, ignite their imagination, instill in them a love for learning and introduce to them a new world of options and opportunities. There is no craft more privileged than the profession of teaching
“The Teacher is an Awakener:”.
Every individual who has scaled the heights of achievement will always remember his/her education- formal or non-formal. What comes first and foremost to their minds in such moments is not the methods and techniques they studied in the textbooks while at school, but the teacher who taught them. The teacher is the heart of any educational system. A beautiful passage in the brilliant Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho’s The Witch of Portobello reads: “Who is a teacher? I’ll tell you: it isn’t someone who teaches something, but someone who inspires the student to give of her best in order to discover what she already knows.” Most people end up in their professional lives with very few people—not more than a few dozen at best—who fondly remember them. But good teachers have thousands of people who cherish them for the rest of their lives. Teachers have been respected through the ages because of their noble mission. They are the architects of a healthy, prosperous and harmonious society as they help the students in discovering the capabilities and humaneness lying dormant within them and making them good citizens. Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, former President of India and a great educationist and philosopher, very aptly stated that the first and best textbook a child reads is “The Life of his Teacher”.
Teacher is a Catalyst for Change:
Value education is not the domain of just a few teachers, but, rather, the collective responsibility of all teachers. Teachers must understand the fact that each one of them is, firstly, a value education teacher and then only a teacher in the subject of his/her specialization. As someone very aptly remarked, “Teachers can change lives with just the right mix of chalk and challenges.”
Teachers can introduce a value integrated approach and attitude in their teaching. They can integrate living values and real life examples with academics. They will do well in giving their students something to take home to think about besides homework. Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the distinguished French writer, shares the same outlook: “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but, rather, teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”
