Do teachers hold an esteemed position in the society?

[By: Prof. Pravin V Mulay]

Vedic literature has put the place of teacher on par with GOD. Though we do
not know the existence or non-existence of God, we have teachers replacing GOD. We
have teachers or gurus who bestow the true knowledge about society and life. If we
restrain ourselves to classroom teaching to define a true teacher, we are definitely on
wrong side. Teacher is a source which makes our knowledge and understanding of the
civilization which we live in, clearer and our thoughts more analyzing which in turn
balances our lives towards TRUTH. This is the essence, spirit and mirror of a true
teacher.

We live in a society that is severely skewed, tormented with a number of

inequalities, discrimination, oppression and suffering. The most striking figure in the
history of mankind, who left all his royal luxuries in search of the root cause for the
suffering of human beings, The Buddha, the light of Asia. He, who tried to
understand nature of society and taught that human wants are root cause of human
suffering. But Buddha could not find out the cause beneath the reality of why only a
few people can fulfill their wants and not the major chunk of the society. Later many
teachers from Socrates to Leibnitz who are also philosophers have attempted to
anchor the TRUTH. In fact, they attempted to interpret the world in their own ways.
But the point is, TO CHANGE IT. The fact to be understood is that great teachers
have always held an esteemed position in the society around us, provided, what they
gave back in return to their own society after their enlightenment.

In the history of mankind, education has been regarded as the force that illuminates
the dark horizons of human limitation. It is the culmination of man’s curiosity. Yet,
for all its capacity to brighten human existence, education dawns upon man not in the
moments of his solitude. It needs a facilitator, someone who is capable of processing
it and helping it survive the curse of human mortality.

There is but one reason as to why education and knowledge escape the stifling curse
of mortality: the blessing of the teacher on his pupil, the resolve in the ‘guru’ that he
will leave behind on our perishable planet all that his life could help him attain. The

1
guru, thereby, blesses his knowledge and makes it survive the curse of decay. Since
time immemorial, the essential equation of teacher and student has been unaltered.
It has undergone many a change in appearance and will undergo many more as it
responds to its many contexts, but it will essentially represent a discourse that leads
to the empowerment of human beings, the transmission of existing knowledge to the
learner so that they could further transmit, evolve and develop it and hence teachers
worldwide have accomplished a definite sound position in human revolution.

As a profession in the modern world, teaching assumes a role traditionally sanctioned

and suitably modern. It seeks to address the many contexts wherein it operates while
dynamically operating on its essential, traditional philosophy. A teacher in the
modern world, therefore, faces the challenge of being aware of his traditional role
and attributes and delivering his knowledge content contextually to the learner.
He/she is alive to the fact that it is his/her role to humanly pass on knowledge to the
receiver and in that process shape the receiver’s thought processes. While it may be
argued that there are facts of knowledge that are constant and the teacher can do
little to create the perception in the receiver about them, it must be borne in mind
that human nature absorbs facts and data not in a vacuum but in context. Teachers
are therefore those devices who have already taken up this confront and undeniably
hold an esteemed position in the society.

It is the teacher who is the architect of the context and the creator of perception
based learning. In a society where knowledge power nexus exists, as Michel Foucault
has famously observed, the teacher not only represents the Godhead but becomes
one. In our times teachers have thus come to acquire a position far more sensitive and
a role far more defining than they had in the past. In a knowledge based society,
teachers work as liberators of their students. They both empower them with skills to
excel in life and tell them how to grow society further. These roles and challenges
that have carved a niche for teaching as a profession and conferred upon professional
teachers respect and recognition. The guiding motive of a teacher today is the
growing awareness in them that they are the venerated movers and shakers of their
times; they encourage thought processes in their students; they sow the seeds for a
better future.
2
The 21st Century Learners are assumed to be collaborative, adaptive, information,
media and technology savvy, communicators, immediate and instant, require instant
gratification, creators and adaptor and thus the society expects the teacher to be
creative, constructive and technologically trained to adapt these means in the
classroom teaching situations. Teachers cleave to a very elevated and esteemed
position as parents trust them more than anyone in the society as they consider
teachers as the ultimate instruments of change. They also believe that the qualities
like tolerance, acceptance, a wider view, global awareness, reflection and equal
justice rests within the teachers to shape their child in all possible ways to face this
competitive world of today.

Being a teacher, like being a parent, means taking on a complex role, a role that is in
constant flux that needs constant redefinition according to the learner or the child.
Teaching requires knowledge, skill, commitment and caring. Preparing to teach
requires effort and time.It was William Butler Yates who said: “Teaching is not filling
a pail, but lighting a fire.” And it is the teacher’s role to strike the sparks.

According to educational philosophy, a teacher basically has to three roles the first is
the role in the class room, having to do with classroom management, the second is
the role towards the students, it has to do with the personal interaction between the
teacher and the learner, and the third is the role towards him- or herself, the
commitment of the teacher to continued personal development, to be the best he or
she can be.

The teacher’s role in the class room depends on the amount of autonomy a teacher is
willing to give to the learners and on the stage of the introduction of new language.
I will quote Harmer in distinguishing the following roles of a teacher:
The teacher who acts as controller is in complete charge of the class. All attention is
focused on the front of the class, and the students are all working to the same beat.
This style lends itself perfectly to the accurate reproduction stage and to drilling.
Some teachers appear to be natural leaders and performers and find it hard to
relinquish autonomy to the learners. At the stage of creative communication though,

3
it is vital that the control be relaxed if students are allowed a chance to learn, rather
than be taught.

Clearly a major part of the teacher’s job is to act as assessor of the students’ work.
At the stage of accurate reproduction, correction will be immediate, to show the
student where a mistake has been made.

Obviously, the first teachers we have in our lives in most cases are our parents. They
teach us to walk, to speak, and to have good manners before we reach "the real
world." More than even the professional teachers that we have in school, parents are
generally the most involved in the development and education of children. But during
the second stage of child development, adolescence, parents can still be in the best
position to offer advice even though the children might not accept it. In this case,
perhaps the child's friends would be the best teachers. We can see that being a
teacher of growing child becomes more and more complicated as the time passes and
many parents are simply not able to meet the increased demands.

On the other hand, parents are not professional teachers and they tend to be very
biased by their love of their children. So wishing good things and an easy life may
prevent children from maturation. In short, while parents are not the ideal teachers,
and well-round development of the children will generally need a great diversity of
teachers in their lives in order to have a more accurate view of the world, parents are
generally the most committed of all teachers and have the greatest emotional
investment in their children and their future.

Let us, therefore, conclude that every ultimate genius is the final product of committed and
professional teachers who work creatively hard, constructively productive, intelligently smart
and last but not the least, generously human. He is, without any doubt a human above
dignity, a man with supernatural abilities, a guide with definite direction and a philosopher
with constructive and positive insight – which he/she bestows on his descendents with a
different view, approach and attitude. Yes, it is therefore mandatory on the part of the
society to give him respect, honour, appreciation and set an example before the new
generation that would help to sustain and protect every teacher’s esteemed position in the
society.