Have you ever thought where you would be without the teachers who spent time helping you learn about yourself and the world? Teachers are the ones who inspire and make you understand that there will be stumbling blocks on the road ahead and all depends on how you use them.
Nelson Mandela rightly said: “ Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
Every day, a teacher comes to school ready to tackle a job that is critically important, extraordinarily complex, often joyful and at times heartbreaking. People think that a teacher’s job is easy, but few realise the hardships endured. Of course there are rewarding moments too. A teacher is an awakener to enlightenment. She is a counselor and psychologist too.
A teacher is one who seeds a lifetime of knowledge. She gives her students something to take home to think about. The influence of a good teacher can never be erased. A teacher enlightens everyone around her and is a perfect guide to patience, wisdom and compassion. The value of a teacher is measured by her ability to stimulate in others a desire to know.
A teacher may have to work hard to hold the attention of distracted students. She stretches minds with new ideas. Teaching is hard, when energy is at its lowest level, teachers remind themselves why they are doing what they do. It takes a big heart to help shape little minds.
It is a round the clock job. Your day begins and ends thinking about your next class. After successful planning, you immaculately groom yourself to make yourself presentable. Then begins the morning race.
Even though you make a point of leaving the classroom tidy at the end of the day, somehow you always sprint around the class as fast as you can in the morning before students show up. If you need to clean the board, you hit that first.
The children start coming in and the morning turns noisy and crowded. The last class of the day is as long as any other. Children can get tired, so it becomes challenging to keep them upbeat and focused. It’s not over yet. Most teachers voluntarily stay after school to help students. Right before a teacher leaves, she makes sure that the room is clean and her desk is clear. This circle invades the life of a teacher every day, but the most beautiful thing about her is that she realises that teaching is a vocation and not merely a job, so she puts a smile and works round the clock, creating new lives, better future and moulding a new world.
- The reader is a teacher based in Dubai.
