We Thought They Were Teaching Lessons While They Were Shaping Lives | Teachers’ Day Special

Once Teachers' Day was about colourful paper, handmade cards, flowers purchased with pocket money and whispered plans to surprise the teacher before the teacher walked into the classroom. We decorated the board, rehearsed our little speeches and waited to see the smile on a teacher's face when we gave them a gift. Back then, Teachers' Day was a special day at school and we celebrated it. Today we know that the celebration was not really about one day; it was about celebrating the people who quietly shaped so many days of our lives. 

Years pass, classrooms change, schools renovate, teachers retire, students move away and those familiar school corridors become memories; those punishments become a source of smiles. But, in some way, a teacher's voice persists in our decisions. A teacher's words of “You can do it” can be the beginning of the confidence that someone has today. The discipline that helps someone build a career may have come from a teacher who refused to let them give up. Kindness towards another person may have been learned not from a book, but from observing a teacher's kindness.

And life takes us in different directions. Some of us become teachers ourselves, standing on the other side of the classroom and discovering, perhaps for the first time, how much patience, responsibility and love the profession demands. Others become doctors, lawyers, designers, engineers, researchers, entrepreneurs, artists, parents or professionals in countless other fields. Some now celebrate Teachers' Day by making cards for teachers with their own children, and witness the next generation of students discovering the teachers who could influence their lives. 

Some carry on the knowledge, values and courage their teachers imparted to them, and they use those gifts to create better lives and make the world a little better, in their own unique ways. That may be the greatest tribute to a teacher. Not the flowers, not the gifts, not even the unclear/ copied words written on a card, it is what a student eventually does with what they were taught.

Teachers in the age of AI

It is  Teachers' Day in a world where technology can explain a hard concept in seconds, translate a paragraph, solve a problem and even be a personal tutor. AI can indeed be a great learning partner. However, education is not just about getting answers and explanations. Chatgpt is indeed a great learning partner, but a teacher? Apparently, not. 

The teacher observes that the student is unusually quiet. A teacher understands when a child needs encouragement rather than another explanation. A teacher can see potential before a student can see it. Teaching is full of wit, empathy, patience, disappointment, hope and human connection, none of which can be boiled down to information.

AI can provide a student with a solution to a problem. A teacher might be able to see why that student never believed that they could solve it in the first place. That distinction matters.

Technology is a part of the future of education and teachers can leverage it to personalise learning, make it accessible and engaging. Technology should enhance the teacher-student connection, not replace it. Children don't just need information. They need people who can see them, challenge them, believe in them and sometimes stand beside them when they are ready to give up.

The moments that never leave the classroom 

Perhaps this is why Teachers’ Day becomes more emotional as we grow older. We believed that our teachers were teaching us lessons when we were children. We know as adults that they were sharing with us their curiosity, their discipline, their courage, their compassion, their confidence, and their ability to persevere.

A number of those students will be back in classrooms as teachers. Some will celebrate their children's teachers. Some will start businesses, treat patients, make art, find new things, serve communities, or just raise their families with the values they were taught years ago.

The classroom may have been left behind, but the lesson did not end there. So this Teachers' Day, maybe we should remember all the teachers who made us feel capable when we felt like we couldn't, corrected us when we needed it, listened when we needed to be listened to, and pushed us towards a future we couldn't have envisioned.

Because a teacher’s greatest achievement is rarely visible on the day they teach a lesson. It is visible years later in the lives their students go on to live. 

Happy Teachers Day!