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A Celebration with Contradictions
Every year, Teachers’ Day is celebrated with great fanfare in various educational institutions across the country on 05th September. It is often seen that a majority of teachers stay away from political and administrative positions. In such a situation, it is indeed a matter of pride that a teacher was chosen and accepted the role of the President of the nation.
While teachers have traditionally been accorded a position of respect and acceptance in society, they are seldom seen as nation builders in positions of power. Instead, their power is seen to lie in working at the grassroots—transforming lives of young and old students on an everyday basis. Their strength lies in forming strong bonds with the community and with the students themselves. Their role is seen as gently guiding students towards the right path rather than leading the nation on the path of success. Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was indeed an exception to this popularly held belief.
The debates around whether his wish for his birthday to be celebrated as Teachers’ Day should or should not be honoured is probably a matter for another piece. What is of relevance today is in what way this day is celebrated.
The Flood of Messages: Gratitude or Gesture?
In this era of instant messaging, teachers’ phones are jammed with messages from students, families and friends on Teachers’ Day. It is indeed an honour and privilege to receive the love and wishes of so many. Some of these are forwarded messages that lack any real meaning and are merely hollow artistic presentations of words that mean as little to the sender as they do to the receiver.
Over a period of years, I have discounted these messages as coming from people who remember me as a teacher and feel compelled to wish me. Why they choose to rely on a standardised, ready-to-forward message is best known to them, but can stem from laziness, or a lack of emotional expression. Being remembered, of course, feels like an honour in itself. And then there is this rare student who chooses to describe the uniqueness of their engagement with us and reminds us why this profession continues to hold greater appeal than more lucrative job opportunities.
The Noble Profession and the Price of Respect
And herein I begin to question what Teachers’ Day means to us—to teachers, to students and to society at large. Why are teachers expected to accept the idea that while teachers are paid less than their efforts deserve, they should accept it as the profession is a ‘noble’ one and ‘commands utmost respect’?
Over a period of years, the pay scales of teachers in government employment have improved. However, the growth opportunities have not. So, while teachers begin with decent pay scales, with lack of growth opportunities, their pay stagnates—unless they shift to administrative responsibilities wherein their pay scales see some improvement.
For over a decade now, teachers are legally prohibited from taking private tuitions. Yet, in reality, many teachers are seen teaching in coaching centres to boost their personal income. Given the illegal status of this endeavour, the data on this is difficult to gather. A casual conversation with teachers in low fee charging private schools, that in turn employ teachers on abysmally low pay scales, will tell you that this is a common practice that seems to suit schools, teachers, and students.
Unspoken Struggles
Service conditions in schools and colleges continue to be a struggle. While some schools do not have seating spaces for teachers, others have consciously decided to ban teachers from sitting throughout the duration of their school day. In one case, a school decided that it was unprofessional for teachers to drink water in class and banned teachers from carrying water bottles to the classroom.
The mental and physical load of handling a group of anywhere between 30 to 100 students in a classroom is barely recognised. A survey conducted by busyteacher.org showed that teachers make close to 1500 decisions in a six-hour day. That equates to roughly four decisions per minute. In comparison to many professions, a significant percentage of these decisions may be claimed to be of less complexity and severity. Nevertheless, even if all of these decisions were presumed to be simple, and far from survival decisions, the sheer number and frequency of ‘simple’ decisions that teachers are required to make are enough to cause decision fatigue and cognitive overload.
In the past half a decade, many teachers in schools and colleges have invested in personal microphones that they use to address their classrooms to save their voice boxes. Yet, class sizes continue to increase at all levels. Any teacher would be happy to have more students enrolled in schools. But we would also want more classrooms, more facilities, and more teachers, to meet the needs of all of them.
The Ritual of Celebration
And on Teachers’ Day, we are required to forget about all these challenges and accept hollow wishes and derive joy from them. Let’s take a minute to look at what happens on Teachers’ Day in school.
Students of senior grades ‘dress up’ as teachers, indicating that there is one definite way in which to look like a teacher. For most students, this is an opportunity to come to school in fancy clothes and find freedom from the school uniform.
Many of the students would then gather together after school hours to have their own private celebration that has no connect with the occasion they were ‘celebrating’. For the rest of the students, it is a day in which there will be no classes as ‘make believe’ teachers would come to their class. For some of the students, this is a day to bring small gifts for their favourite teachers—a flower, a pen, a chocolate, a handmade card.
For teachers, this means that here is a working day on which they are still responsible for the students who come to school, but they will get a break from teaching. Has this become a hallmark of Teachers’ Day—a day’s respite from the workload of teaching? Is it not sad that real joy comes from not teaching?
In Delhi NCR, some private schools have been seen to host parties for teachers in banquet halls and organise DJs for the teachers to have light-hearted fun!
Symbolism Without Substance
All of this is done without any real meaning for what the day upholds. Are any of these celebrations organised thoughtfully? What meaning does dressing up as a teacher hold? How did this tradition start? Are token gifts the only way to show love and respect? Are some of these gifts handed out as a mere formality? Does a special assembly with songs, quotes and motivational speeches hold ground the next day? Do students understand the significance of what they are participating in? Should students not ask which professions are given accordance to be celebrated? Don’t all professions deserve dedicated days? Are teachers the only professionals in schools and colleges?
The Invisible Backbone of Education
All educational institutions are run on strong administrative and support staff. If the cleaning staff, for instance, is on leave on one day, the institution finds it difficult to find a substitute. Yet, a school or college that is found clean every day in the morning as classes begin fails to recognise the work that is undertaken by support staff. Most students are not even made aware of Labour Day. This is just one example of where social hierarchies remain unchallenged.
A Call for Mindful Celebration
A key purpose of education is to broaden the horizons of students and encourage them to think critically. By reducing Teachers’ Day to a day of mindless fun and token ‘respect’, we are contradicting the very foundation of education that requires us to be mindful of our thoughts, actions, and beliefs.
Read more reflections here