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Teachers Day in India
Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan's birth Anniversary September 5 is being celebrated as Teachers Day. September 5 is special day to pay respect to our teachers.
The day is also significant for all of us as we remember a great teacher, philosopher and statesman, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, whose birth
anniversary falls on this day. Dr. Radhakrishnan was regarded as great teacher. Country celebrates his birth anniversary to pay respect for the teachers.
In India teacher has been placed above the God. The teacher is regarded as Brahma, Vishnu and Maheswara combined in one.
गुरुर्ब्रह्मा गुरुर्विण्णु गुरुर्देवो महेश्वर |
गुरुः साक्षात परं ब्रह्म
तस्मै श्री गुरुवे नमः ||
Teacher guides us towards the success in every aspect of life. It is important for both to respect the relationship.
Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
Dr. Sarvepalli
Radhakrishnan was born into a middle class family at Tirutani in Tamil Nadu state, a town in Madras Presidency,
British India. Radhakrishnan went through most of his education on scholarships. He joined the Voorhee’s College in Vellore but
switched to the Madras Christian College. He graduated with a Master’s degree in Philosophy from the Madras Christian College in 1906.
In the year 1921, he was appointed as a professor in philosophy to occupy the King George V Chair of Mental and Moral Science at the University of
Calcutta. In 1929, Radhakrishnan was invited to take the post vacated by Principal J. Estlin Carpenter in Manchester College,
Oxford. For his services to education, he was knighted by the British Government in
1931. He was the Vice-Chancellor of Andhra University from 1931 to 1936. In 1936, Radhakrishnan was named Spalding
Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at the University of Oxford, and was elected a Fellow of All Souls College. In 1939,
Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya invited him to become Vice-Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University, where he continued as its Vice-Chancellor till January, 1948.
In 1947 when India became independent he represented India at UNESCO, and was later Ambassador of India to the Soviet Union, from 1949 to 1952.
He was also elected to the Constituent Assembly of India.
Dr. Radhakrishnan was elected as the first Vice President of India in 1952. He was elected as the
second President of India (1962-1967). He celebrated his birthday on September 5 as Teachers’ Day.” Since then September
5 is an important day for all of us. It is the day set aside to remember our teachers.
The significance of celebrating Teachers' Day
Teachers Day is the only occasion when we remember the time spent with our teacher, what they taught and what we are today.
Teacher guides us towards the success in every aspect of life. It is important for both to respect the relationship.
A good teacher knows how to get along with kids, has a vast knowledge of her subject, thinks of the quality of the students’ education first, gives students fair and just punishment for academic crime — forgetting
home-work, misbehaving and chattering when you should be working, not respecting the rules of the school.
Teachers are the prime movers who commit their whole life to the welfare of the youth, hence
they are the greatest builders of a society or a nation. If we are proud of our country, our progress, our wealth and power, then we should be proud of our teachers.
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Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore , the Nobel laureate poet, writer, philosopher
was the ambassador of Indian culture to the rest of the world. Rabindranath Tagore was not only a greatest Bengali poet, novelist,
a greatest writer in modern Indian literature but was a great educator. In 1901 Tagore founded a school outside Calcutta, Visva-
Bharati, which was dedicated to emerging Western and Indian philosophy and education. It become a university in 1921.
Students gift house to teacher as mark of respect
In a unique and loving gesture, students presented a house to their former teacher at Gurusamypalayam village in Tamil
Nadu. Eighty-three-year-old Soballapuram V Venkataraman, who has been living in a rented run-down house at the village in Namakkal district even after 25
years of retirement with his aged wife and a widowed daughter, will now have a new place to live.
Venkataraman will soon shift into the new house, which is spacious and much larger than his present accommodation.
The house, built in an area of 1,200 square feet, is nearly ready and will be formally gifted to the guru on the ‘Teachers’ Day’ on September 5.Venkataraman says even
though his students have been successful in life he never ever expected anything like this from them. He recalls he never complained about his
financial problem to them. However, he said he was overwhelmed by this gesture. “I have been teaching from 1954 to 1985 for 32 years. And during the course of my teaching profession, I have taught about
nearly 1,500 students. Many of them are now working as industrialists, doctors, engineers, senior administrative officers,” said Venkataraman.
Teacher who motivates
Former president APJ Abdul Kalam
Teachers are considered the second parents who play a vital role in socialization of young minds.
Former president APJ Abdul Kalam ceaselessly
extols his school teacher. Kalam is never tired of telling how as a child, grew up in Rameshwaram in Tamil
Nadu, his class VIII science teacher Siva Subramania Iyer changed his life with a lesson on how birds fly. He recounts how Iyer, realizing
students had not understood, took them to the seashore to observe birds. “The birds’ flight entered me. From that evening, I thought my future
study has to be with reference to flight and flight systems,” he said. And as you know he becomes the “Missile Man of India.”
When Dr Abdul Kalam became President of India, he located his centenarian teacher in Tamil Nadu and put him on stage with him to share his
honour. Dr Kalam said, the launch of the rocket is most crucial. If it is given the right take-off, it can reach the moon. The teacher is the launching pad of every great person who reaches for the sky.
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, CMD Biocon could not forget her teacher who motivated her to great height today. “Ann-Warrior at Bishop Cotton School,
Bangalore, taught me to think for myself, to excel in everything I do and to do thing differently and creatively in order to make a difference.
She also played an important role in instilling deep sense of values in me,” she said.
Make education system accountable
Manmohan Singh still counts his time in the teaching profession as the best years of his life.
“My own years as a teacher have been the most satisfying and fulfilling in my life,” he told the national teacher awardees on the eve of Teachers' Day.
“Through teachers, flow the values and culture of a nation and its people,” he said.
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Dr. Singh noted that despite the age-old values of the country's education system, teachers needed to accept change in keeping with the
times, maintaining a fine balance between traditions and innovation. One of those changes is the abolition of corporal punishment in schools.
“Right
to Education Act 2010 bans corporal punishment and mental harassment. It also bans detention and
expulsion. These provisions have
led many teachers to question how discipline will be maintained in the
classroom,” he said. Over the past year, a number of high-profile cases of corporal
punishment, even leading to death or suicide, have put the issue in the spotlight.
“The school environment should be free from fear, trauma and anxiety. No
child, irrespective of caste, gender or community to which he or she belongs should dread the thought of going to school,” he added, pointing
out that the attitude of teachers was crucial in making inclusive education schemes truly effective in the classroom.
Today, political parties may make tall claims about bettering the state of Indian education, but the fact remains that the
sector is trapped in a vicious circle, a system that fosters 'percentage' over
'aptitude'. Today generations are coming out with degree certificates, but few trained to think innovatively.
Tuitions, rather than quality classroom teaching has become the order of the day.
The society is also responsible for this because it thinks that all those who
couldn't find a job have managed to become teachers. There is an urgent need to refashion the
teaching profession. The government, society and educators have to pledge for a
new beginning. Don't use teachers for election duty and counting citizens in a census, make them teach, thus making them accountable.
Do justice to teachers.
We have revered and respected our teachers from time immemorial but we have never done justice to them.
They not only taught us how to read and write and calculate, they also stood by us as protective guardians, and helped us build our self-esteem and confidence to face the world.
We should salute all the humble, quiet and unassuming teachers who dedicated their lives to their students, held them close, and made them what they are today. |
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