Even as the Teachers’ Day was celebrated last week, it should be known that a good teacher is a better student as he/she learns as much as his/ her students. He/ she is blessed to learn valuable lessons from his students on daily basis. Teachers were never a sole repository of knowledge, neither are they now.
It is because learning is a continuous process till death and mistakes are but a natural part of learning. A teacher merely plays a role of an augmenter to inspire hope, ignite imagination and love for learning. Greek philosopher Socrates is widely regarded as one of the great teachers of all time.
He was very much keen to reject his own knowledge and his own methods of teaching. His method of teaching never treats the students as empty vessels to be filled with knowledge. He does not believe that any one person or any one school of thought is authoritative or has the wisdom to teach. Instead, both the teacher and students embark on a voyage of discovery by the process of teaching and learning.
It helps in engaging students as well as empowers the contributors to openly exchange dialogue to contribute to teaching -learning process. According to him, a teacher is not merely to teach the facts, formulae and theorems but he educates to stretch the imagination of students to the limits of their intellectual capacity. A teacher facilitates the students to an intelligent grasp of the structure of the subject by adopting dialectical method to critical inquiry into the credibility of widely apprehended doctrine.
Teachers guide students on intelligent application of formulae, definitions and facts; rather than committing them to memory. It helps in creative thinking and intensive thinking which is not only important to gain knowledge of facts but knowledge of values. A teacher does not merely teach but he educates. Education is not preparation of life, it is life itself. The goals of education are to know what one can.
More importantly, education lets us know what we do not know, how to think, how best to live and make others’ life better. Since time immemorial, the profession of teaching has been considered as one of the noblest and respectable professions. Teaching with absolute involvement, sincerity and devotion generates passion.
Good teachers work tirelessly to create a nurturing environment not only to teach knowledge, skills and abilities to be successful in career, but to become good human beings and good citizens of the country.
Teachers are supposed to be the best mind of the nation and the planet as they are the educators who own major responsibility of building capacity, competency, nation and character.
The teaching profession requires compassionate people who have the conviction to nurture young minds and mould them into something bottomless. Educators have always played the role of reagents in upholding the societal moral values and bringing necessary social changes. Teaching ought to be a profession with passion to build society, State and country by imparting value education for sustainable human development and social changes.
(The writer is an MBA teacher at the Utkal University)
