By Haroon Rashid Bhat
When Dr. Radha Krishna the former President of India was approached by some of his friends and students, requesting him to celebrate his birthday that falls on the 5th of September. Dr. S. Ramakrishna expressed his wish that instead of observing his birthday, it would be a privilege if 5th September is celebrated as “Teacher Day”. Since then, the Teachers day is celebrated on the 5th of September. Usually, on this very day, students hold different activities to entertain teachers at schools and colleges. These activities include singing competition, dance competition, recitation of poems, mimicry of teachers, lots of games children play with teachers, plan a picnic, offer gifts and at last, they thank teachers by expressing their gratitude but today the situation is different, students could only offer virtual greetings to their beloved teachers because of the reason that is known to everyone. Yes, the prevailing situation that has been created by the COVID-19.
Besides acknowledging the efforts of teachers and addressing their genuine issues on this particular day, one of the prime purposes of celebrating this day is to enhance a good relationship between a teacher and a student. But for the last few years, this sacred relationship has been weekend. The reasons may be many but, the main reasons are the changing nature of our teachers and the maximum involvement of materialism in it. There are teachers in the education system who are weighing this noble profession only in terms of economic gains ignoring its social, emotional, religious aspect.
Like medical professionals, they prefer to attend their students (clients) at their private study/coaching centers. It has seen that a good number of teachers deliberately keep the syllabi unattended in schools and enforce the students to attend their private coaching centers for the completion of the prescribed syllabi. They are demanding hefty charges in the name of tuition fee and in some cases, rates are prefixed for each subject. one more issue that becomes the cause of concern today for our society is the increasing number of cases which are reflecting the involvement of the teachers in sexual abuse and misconduct with their students. When the student observer this non-seriousness attitude by a teacher, they try to personify his personality accordingly. A negative image is portrayed by a student against that particular teacher who is indulging in such actions.
It is a common complaint expressed by our teacher community that they are not being respected or loved like their predecessors. Their claim is cent percent true. If we compare the teacher community of today with that of our seniors, we see a lot of differences both in terms of their personal or professional abilities. Those teachers deserve a lot of appreciation because they considered teaching as a social and religious obligation. They were treating each student equally irrespective of their social, religious background. If a student remained absent for a day or two, they used to approach his/her home to see the cause of his absence, provide all sorts of assistance to him/her, extended full support in the completion of their pending classwork. They considered them as their sons and daughters. They never kept a wicked eye on them. Instead of tuition fee, they used to receive gifts from their students after the completion of their course or when they were promoted to the next class
If the teacher community wants to regain that glorious status, they have to avoid this selfish nature and immoral attitude. They have to develop etiquettes which are pre-requisite for this saintly profession. May I mention here that the situation is not completely dismal? Still, there are teachers in the system who are following the ethics of this noble profession in a true sense. But some defamed this noble profession by their wicked deeds. This “Teachers Day” provides such teachers an opportunity to introspect.
Haroon Rashid Bhat is a teacher and columnist minamharoon123@gmail.com
