Dose the “Teachers Day” Satisfy Teachers For Their Role

Teaching in itself is earning a prestige and not less than an award for a self-motivated teacher. For it’s nobility, teaching has always remained reputable job. Education is a priceless asset and teachers it’s builders. Teachers play a big role in passing on the education and knowledge from generation to generation, in this way they help in transforming the society. So they deserve a credit in return for their remarkable role, which is given to them in the form of appreciation and encouragement. Keeping in view the status and the role of a teacher, “Teachers Day” is celebrated on 5th of September to commemorate their contribution in order to honor them. History is witness that teachers have earned good respect, regard, name and fame during their respective periods. We should always try to uphold their status who have taught us the ways of living. In earlier times teachers were not only the guides but primarily they were the main resources of information. But nowadays information is available at easy access on internet, so some people are of the opinion that the role of a teacher has reduced to a large extent. Such thinking is limiting the broad meaning of education. No doubt, providing information is a part of education, but education covers vast area of instructions that is beyond information. In this technologically informative age, most of the people are still under confusion to differentiate between information and education, they misinterpret information as education. However, I out of my own opinion disagree with those who still use the words information and education interchangeably. In this informative era, where internet has available the whole information of the world on your pinger tips, gaining information is an easiest task that needs just few seconds to accomplish. So we should not remain stuck to the concepts of bygone days when human mind and books were the only carriers of information, so those were the days when the process of passing on information was considered education. The role of a teacher is much bigger than the people by and large unprofessionally think. Guiding, facilitating supporting, understanding where his student is and what his need is, are all the prime duties of a teacher. Upholding all these responsibilities he can make a student to differentiate between good and bad, due and undue, dos and do nots, right and wrong, thereby can enable him to chose a right track that will lead him to his purposeful goal to choose his proper way of living independently like a good human being and to earn his livelihood through the due ways and means. In this way a teacher’s job is not just to act as a source of information like Google but to upskill a students in the domains of logical thinking with reasoning, problem solving and imaginating. In addition to that a big challenge before the teachers is to address moral degradation and keep a check on social evils, instilling ethics and values among the students.
One can’t blame technology, On one hand it is a blessing, because it has paved way to resolve thousands of challenging problems and on the other hand it’s negative impacts have put a big challenges before the people of present age. No doubt, Internet, one of the important products of modern technology has propagated awareness of everything among people that was hidden in earlier times and has kept information accessible round the clock. But it’s content is jumbled with mixture of huge untidy rubbish stuff which is amounting disastrous for humanity and has dehumanizing effects. Moreover it is very difficult for a layman to extract real and purposeful information out of it’s mess. So information explosion has put extra burden on the shoulders of the teachers to protect the upcoming generations from it’s ill effects. Thus teacher is not only provider of required information but imparter of education that aims at realisation of human resource and creating other professions. For his extraordinary role a teacher needs to be respected, appreciated and encouraged. That is what the Teachers Day teaches us. Every year seminars and award distributing functions are organised throughout the country to commemorate the role of teachers. Likewise in Jammu and Kashmir UT teachers day is celebrated with full fervour and government has organised a big celebration at SKICC where along with high level government functionaries more than five hundred participants are participating. Appreciating the teachers on Teachers Day is really an encouraging and inspiring gesture. But the question is despite such a good gesture, does the celebration of “Teachers Day” satisfy teachers, if yes then why they are mostly being seen protesting on roads with their grievances and issues. It would have been far better to appreciate them beyond mere words and certificates, that is by easing their service conditions and redressing their service issues. Doing that in a concrete manner would give them a high level of respect and regard.
(The author is a teacher by Profession. Views are his own)
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