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Teachers on World Teachers’ Day
By Leon Suseran
World Teachers’ Day is being observed across the globe today under the theme “Take a Stand for Teachers”.
Education International prepares the celebrations and observances worldwide for this special day for teachers for their valuable contribution to national development.
Dr Jerry Jailall
Mark Lyte, Deputy Head Teacher of the Tutorial Academy Secondary School in New Amsterdam and Lecturer at the University of Guyana Berbice Campus (UGBC) has been a teacher for over 20 years. “I find teaching to be a very interesting experience, working with children, especially at the secondary level…so having a day set aside for teachers is indeed appropriate where we can be remembered for our hard work and efforts put in place.”
He sees teachers as those individuals who mould lives to make lives better, “especially in a society where we have many broken homes”.
Teachers, he said, work to encourage children and “let them understand their roles in society.” He lauded numerous teachers who have gone beyond the call of duty where they can bring children to that place where they can see themselves as part of society.
Professor Daizal Samad, Director of UGBC, has taught too for quite a number of years and had even written about it. While praising the day earmarked for teachers, he said that it needs to be made real… “not just one of these days that we have…Teachers’ Day or ‘dhort people day’ but it must mean something and we all should take a stand for teachers!”
Not everyone who finds him or herself in front of a classroom is a teacher. “I am speaking of the true teacher–the one who doesn’t treat students as if they were empty barrels into which we will pour knowledge as if you pouring old oil.”
That is not teaching, he said; teaching is not about imparting knowledge as if knowledge was some kind of disease. “Teaching is about encouraging students to find that which is the best in themselves.”
Professor Daizal Samad
“Every time a student comes into my classroom, that student should leave a different and better person– that is a teacher! And that is why this job is so difficult, because you are asking a lot of a teacher!”
Teaching, he said, is an exercise in perpetual self-erasure. “Every time you teach it’s like you are erasing a little bit of yourself.”
The job of the true teacher, in the end, is to disappear – there is no room, he said, for ego. “The moment the teacher thinks it’s about power, that is not a teacher.”
Dr Jerry Jailall, another teacher in Berbice, reflected too on the profession on this special day. He believes every day should be Teachers’ Day… “the foundation layers of the society, in the same way the carpenter builds houses, teachers build the lives of students”.
He has taught in Guyana, Bahamas, US, The Middle East and everywhere teachers are seen to be very special people. “I’ve enjoyed doing it even though the benefits are not great, but teaching is not only art and science but teaching has heart in it and….many of our teachers in Guyana have their heart in teaching and care about students and they are in it for love of nation and people.”
Dr Jailall stated, too, that it is very enriching to see students grow from nursery to high school level and they graduate…“and they become our doctors, lawyers, members of parliament and I ask myself, without teachers, where would all these people come from?”
That is what makes teaching so very special, he said, and that is why teachers are such important building blocks and foundation workers in the society; “they ought to be treated with reverence and respect and all the dignity that we have to offer them”.
Mark Lyte
Regardless of the conditions of work and renumeration, Dr Jailall still believes it is a very noble profession “because you are creating the building blocks of society”. He is encouraging teachers to never stop learning because the effectiveness of teaching is highly correlated to how much we learn and how many books we read “and we should always try to deliver a 21st Century education to all our students, whoever they may be– never stop studying and always strive for excellence”.
Several schools have special events planned to honour their teachers today. Students, too, are going to be showing appreciation to their teachers, both past and present, on this special day.
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