Tomorrow is Teachers Day in India. At schools throughout the country the responsibility of teaching is taken over by the senior students and the teachers are honoured and showered with small tokens of affection.  Traditionally, people in India have always given tremendous respect and honor for teachers. Teachers have always been ranked as one of the most important people in anyones life. "Maa, Pitha, Guru, Daivam".

 

Being a good teacher requires an extraordinary amount of hard work . Many good teachers are not born to teach. Good teaching does not come naturally to most of us. Have any of you ever known a lazy teacher who was also a good teacher?  Most good teachers are “teachaholics”. Addicted to their  work. Seeking that  ‘special feeling’ that comes with one of those wonderful classes where everything clicked, and many lives were forever touched.

 

Good teachers are loving teachers. Not every day, with every class, and not with every student, but you cannot be a good teacher if you do not love children. Why would teachers stay in this profession if they did not love their  work, and the students? They do not stay for the money - there are far easier ways to make money. They do not stay for the prestige, for there is little prestige even for the very best in our profession. They stay because they love what they do. They stay - because they love that feeling that comes from knowing that they are influencing tomorrow by touching the minds and hearts of students today.

 

Good teachers love teaching, and they also teach in a loving way. The love in teaching is a kind of parental love. Good teachers want to protect their students and show them how to protect themselves. They want to help them learn to get along in the world and give them the tools to live an independent and enriching, moral life -  as citizens of a free country that demands responsibility as the price of freedom. 

 

Good teachers are loco parentis and want for their students the same thing that parents want for their children. The relationship between teacher and student is built on the foundations that also apply to good parenting -  trust, encouragement, praise, selflessness,  discovery,  self realization, and the ability to let go and allow the child to fly . And a good teacher’s love is a selfless love, for the teacher knows that they only have the child for a short time and that the child will leave and move on to new and different environments. Unlike parents, the teacher may never see the child again, and does not expect some later, caring payback.

 

In today’s world it is a sad fact that the teacher often spends far more time with the child than the parents.  Often they know the child better than their career driven parents. The teacher’s reward for the effort and love that they bestow on their students is both great and small. They have the gift of sharing the student’s childhood and adolescence, and the knowledge that they have helped shape a life.   They know that when they have done their job well, they will live on in the heart of the child forever.

 

Tomorrow is Teacher’s Day in India. Teachers will receive small tokens of love and respect. Their greater reward is the love that we keep in our hearts for all of our great teachers.