I was having a conversation with my teacher and asked a question, just as an afterthought: “Why didn’t you become a PhD scholar?” He went into a brown study, if thinking about something unusual, then raised his head, saying: “We are teachers, you know, and we needn’t be PhD scholars; we are to produce PhD scholars.”
I deliberated over his words and surprisingly found that what we have in our world today are because of their efforts. A scientist, an engineer, and an artist are, in fact, the progenies of these efforts. Thus, he can’t be an inventor but he can produce an inventor.
Teachers are not an ordinary lot; rather, they are extraordinary, and believe me beyond that word. Have you ever thought, who was the teacher of Albert Einstein, that giant physicist whom the world consider the father of modern Physics? Likewise, think about the teachers of William Shakespeare, Stephen Hawking, and many others. Their teachers were the people who provided them with their shoulders to stand on and eat the fruit of success, athough they remained what they were.
It’s not about the teachers of Einstein, Hawking, or Shakespeare; instead it’s about our own teachers. They also want us to be successful, achieve our goals, and to become great men. They are there to lift the society to new heights of brilliance, to actualize our dream of a prosperous world, and to lay the foundation of a peaceful life on earth.
A lot can be said in the importance or gravity of teachers. But this has not been always the case. Very few of us have really think about the roles of teachers in society. They are the backbone of society and the torchbearers of knowledge, wisdom, and social change.
Education is crucial for today’s world. That is, in fact good education, that is required. And incomplete is good education without teachers. Teachers are at the helm of today’s education system of the world. Without their efforts, now we would not be witnesses to the sky-high advancements in the fabrics of art and science and technology.
Their province of influence is not confined to teaching alphabet, pure arithmetic, or basic science. They play a tectonic part in nation-building and laying the base of sophistication in the world. Look about you when you are in a public place. Do you see people following certain rules? Do the stand in queue before the ATM? Do they follow the important traffic rules? If yes, then think who has taught these people these precious attitudes and inculcated the habit of following rules and regulation in them? Of course, a teacher it is, who has made the difference.
Some of the earthshaking developments in the world throughout the history have taken place thanks to the role of teachers. Do you know that Japan was crippled to nothing by the havocs the US had wreaked there? The answer is, out of doubt, yes, but one won’t probably believe that when looking at the booming and enviable economy that Japan has today. Who were the people who have made such a difference? Of course, teachers.
In addition, we can assume this the other way round as well. Before 16th of December 1971, there was no a separate country as called Bangladesh. In fact, it was one of the federating units of Pakistan. Who motivated the youth of Bengal to dismember Pakistan and found a separated independent country of their own, were none other than the teachers.
If it is all a teacher who prompts a child to do anything in his life, then a question arises: can teachers even supersede parents in importance? It’s not that parents have a less important role in a child’s life than teachers; rather there is a thing to be understood. Parents beget a child; his teacher begets a successful life for him.
Against his irreplaceable importance in a society, a teacher’s life is not an enviable one. Due to his considerably low pay compared with that of those who he produces and then the lack of incentives in his career, he is not satisfied with his career at best and life at worst. Specifically talking of Pakistan, teachers are always on the look-for to shift to any other career, abandoning the the practice of teaching.
When we are kids, we take a great interest in knowing that what are the likes and dislikes of our teacher, what does he do at home, what he reads, how is his overall life, does he lead a prosperous and happy life, are he satisfied with what he is now, and many other such aspects of his life. Unfortunately, when we grow up and succeeded in attaining any authority, we forget him outright. We are not now interested in his life. And that is where the problem lies.
Those who have the authority of making a positive difference in teachers’ lives, they should do that on priority basis. Because, they are there in the corridors of power thanks to the efforts of their teachers. If that happens, then okay and there is some hope, and if not, all is not doom and gloom for the future of our world, as a peaceful and prosperous place to live in.
Saqib Wazir is a matric student, who aspires to become a fiction writer.
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