Guiding Light: The True Teacher

Education is derived from the Latin roots, e-duco, which means, “I draw out”. Education is essentially a drawing out process – it is not pumping in dry facts and figures into the heads of the students – it draws out that which is already in the students. And this drawing out process is possible only in an atmosphere of friendship. There is a proverb in Tamil which says: “When your child reaches the level of your shoulders in height, you must begin to treat him/her as your friend.”

The aim of teaching – indeed, the aim of education – is not to turn out money-making machines, but to cultivate sensitive, sympathetic, service-minded individuals, to whom life will always be larger than livelihood.

Let your goal as a teacher transcend the obvious end of helping your students to pass examinations! Aim to create better human beings, integrated personalities, whose God given intelligence may be put to the best possible use.

A good teacher can make a difference! You can make a promise to do your little bit to usher in an era of peace, love, honesty, truth and prosperity for all. This can be achieved if the communities of teachers vow to go that extra mile to make a paradigm shift in value education. If one student can be influenced positively, he in turn reaches out to so many lives!

It is crucial that a teacher must realise that his/her profession has more potential than the politicians to shape the future of the nation. In order to change the world we have to begin with ourselves. It is men and women of inner conviction who can influence the world around them.

Therefore:

o Connect with your highest Self

o Develop a sense of self-esteem

o Take pride in your vocation

o Adopt a proactive attitude in your class

o Spread positive vibrations wherever you go

o Become an agent of change for yourself and others around you

* September 5 is celebrated as Teachers’ Day.

Dada J P Vaswani is a humanitarian, philisopher, educator, acclaimed writer, powerful orator, messiah of ahimsa, and non-sectarian spiritual leader

Published on: Tuesday, September 06, 2022, 12:06 PM IST