Where Would We Be Without Teachers?

 

The great teacher, Socrates, was sentenced to death for challenging the status quo. He was surrounded by his weeping students as he drank the poisonous hemlock. His last words to Crito were to sacrifice a rooster on his behalf to Asklepios, who had the power to bring humans back to life, symbolized by the crowing of the rooster each morning after the stillness of the night. He made it clear that it was not his death, but the death of the conversation he started that would be mourned unless it was kept alive in an everlasting cycle - ‘if our argument [logos] comes to an end for us and we cannot bring it back to life again.’

Today, teachers are not given hemlock, but are expected to resign at the most productive stage of their teaching skills. In the 19^th century, education was institutionalized and teachers were re-defined as a workforce, subject to conditions formulated for industry. Students, too, were, and largely continue to be, prepared for industry-based jobs. Only a select few educational institutions prepare students to develop wisdom, knowledge and understanding to make the world a better place.

It was not always so. History is filled with sages, Sufis and gurus who imparted wisdom to their students until their last breath.  In our times there are a few who continued this tradition. The much-loved teacher, Geoffrey Langlands, taught well into his 90s, from 1954, first at Aitchison, Lahore and then in Chitral. Professor Abul Kalam served as Vice Chancellor of Karachi’s NED university at the age of 90. Father Geoffrey Schneider taught continuously in a Sydney school until the age of 102.

While age does not ensure good teaching skills, the general consensus is that older teachers have a deeper understanding of the subject they teach and more nuanced teaching strategies. Their lifelong commitment to teaching, provides a role model and mentorship to younger colleagues, students learn the lesson of commitment to a passion and the prestige of an institution is raised by the presence of legendary teachers. 

Teaching can be a job, a career or a calling – the last describing a desire to have a meaningful impact beyond simply earning a living. Parents are the first teachers. Lifelong learners find teachers everywhere – learning from the young, the uneducated, from life’s experiences, from books, the internet, and even chance encounters.  

George Bernard Shaw said ‘What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.’ Yet, teachers are driven by the need to share their knowledge. As Rumi put it ‘Not only the thirsty seek the water, the water also seeks the thirsty.’

Inspiring teachers have been celebrated in every culture, with national and global awards, and by marking Global Teacher’s Day. Unconventional teachers have been celebrated in books that became iconic films such as The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, To Sir With Love, Dead Poets Society,  and the much loved television version of Agha Nasir’s Taleem e Baalighan.

Passionate teachers are found at every level of education. Ravi Raj Master is a government school teacher in Telangana state India. He shares blogs of his inspiring teaching methods that delight his students as they solve mental challenges, or discover the science of rainbows in a dusty schoolyard with a bucket of water and a piece of glass.

Sanjit "Bunker" Roy founded the Barefoot College in 1972, educating the illiterate and semi-literate across rural India, many of them elderly women, making them technologically self-sufficient.

One can have a grand building, uniforms, a prescribed curriculum, textbooks, classrooms and a disciplined morning assembly. Yet an average teacher will produce average students. If none of those facilities existed, a brilliant teacher would still create brilliant students.

Considering education is the single most significant factor in the development of a nation, teaching has been reduced to an underpaid and undervalued profession. A government teacher in Pakistan receives a fraction of the salary and perks of a deputy secretary. ‘Ghost schools’ that exist only on paper reflect the malaise.

Plutarch said ‘A mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled’. In the words of a school teacher: ‘Teaching is ultimately an act of hope. Every time I teach a lesson, I hope it will inspire learning. Every time I intervene with a struggling student, I hope it will change the trajectory of their path.’

 

Durriya Kazi

April 20, 2025

Karachi

durriyakazi1918@gmail.com