Irony of Teacher's Day!

A few days back all academic institutions commemorated Dr. Radhakrishnan’s birth day as Teacher’s Day. All the people who are in the name of teachers were honored. It has to be noticed, do they really deserve it?

The very word ‘Teacher’ has pregnant responsibilities especially, in Indian tradition guru has the primary significance, we say Matha, Pitha, Guru, Deivam: in that order teachers preserve a higher province above God; In Indian custom, we always glorify him as a God-like person, nay he who discovers the god to his students: and it is proved in many of our literature and history. A teacher meddles in the basic culture of an individual. In a person’s life-drama, his parents are story and his teachers are plot, they who bear the burden of success or of failure of him. The fundamental source of great minds is none other than the teachers.

An ideal teacher must be an outstanding practitioner of what he teaches; he must make his students feel, that what he teaches is the highest knowledge in the world. In the essay “An Apology for Poetry” Philip Sidney has quoted an anecdote of learning horse-man ship. It is pertinent to note it here, Sidney says, his master John Pietro Pugliano “not only afford us the demonstration of his practice but sought to enrich our minds with the contemplations there in which he thought most precious.” –Pugliano is a man who can make his students believe that horse-man ship is the greatest knowledge in the world. The combination of practical and theoretical knowledge makes Pugliano as a master of his subject. A teacher must be as such as Pugliano, he must enthrall his students by his way of teaching as well as way of living. He must elevate his students to do higher moral action.

But at present, how many teachers are being as Pugliano? Nowadays teachers are, but the agents of cheap guides.  They don’t even have a perception of their subject, especially, in our Govt. Schools, it seems, most of the teachers don’t even read the texts, they prefer guides to teach the text, the most miserable thing is, some crooked teachers drag the students to tuitions for monetary purpose; hence, students are rushing more to tuition centers than to schools. The richest purpose of education has been exploited for the commercial purposes. The eminence and holiness of the word ‘Teacher’ is corrupted by the people who are in the name of teacher what is really despairing is, by these people, the glory of a few real masters are fading.

Each and every teacher must have in mind that their teachings bear hundreds of students’ lives and hope on future generation they must feel their job is the most responsible in the universe.