Teachers – Now and Then

This post has been published by me on the occasion of the Teachers’ Day as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 2; the second edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

                          When we think of the word Teacher , the first thought that strikes our mind is the person(s) who taught us various subjects in our school and college.  A Teacher is a person whose occupation is teaching at a place of formal education . We call a person educating students in a school or college as a teacher.If a person is engaged in imparting knowledge related to sports, we call him a Coach and we call a person who imparts spiritual knowledge as Guru and there are many more specific names for a teacher. Whatever the name is , the duty of a teacher is to impart knowledge to his pupils .

                          Going by my experience, there hasn’t been any drastic change in the mindset of the teachers I’ve been taught by in school and in college, but there are a noticeable few. I would like to put them in a serial order.

• Student-Teacher relationship : A few decades back, the teachers were everything to the students in an educational institution . Teachers were a bit strict and there was a very healthy student teacher relationship.Now-a-days, teachers are being more friendly to the students and share a very good rapport with the students. This helps the students being very open to the teachers.
• Accountability : Students should be made accountable to their performance in academics. In olden days, teachers guided the students and students were made accountable for their performance. But with the commercialization of education, teachers are taking the blame and are in a way becoming accountable to the students’ performance. This should change.The teacher should not be blamed for the student’s performance.
• Way of dealing students : Teachers used to be very strict in in the past and each and every one of us have instances where we cursed the teacher for the punishment being given to us.So , teachers used to keep students on toes in the past.But, the present scenario is such that the teachers are made to stand on their toes by the students. The student community has become more rebellious in the recent past and in a away are very  demanding . This should change .
• Problems teachers deal with :  In the past, student and teacher relationship was strictly confined to academics. But the present day students share a lot of things with the teachers and sometimes resort to the teachers for help in some matters of personal concern.So, the present day teachers  also counsel the students in many a away.

                           At the end of the day, we all need to remember one thing . A doctor saves the lives of people, an engineer helps in making good designs , a police ensures security of the people, but a teacher is one who makes the child become the above and moulds the thinking of the child, a pupil rather .There is no truth in saying that we did not have bad teachers. Pardon me, there are no bad teachers, there are only bad experiences with teachers. Even if a teacher has treated you badly, at least we got to learn something that this is not the way of treating the students. There is a saying “Experience is a hard teacher because it gives the test first, then the lesson” . In case , we had a bad experience with a teacher, relate the same to the above quote.Well, teachers are normal humans who have their share of joys and sorrows. I think its the education system that makes the teachers go haywire sometimes, not all though.  There are some teachers who become our role models. Let us be one among our role models.I may sound idealistic and monotonous, but this is what I feel .  I thank blog-a-ton for giving me the opportunity to express my views on Teachers – Now and Then and I really got nostalgic about my school and college days.

The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton are Vipul, Rajalakshmi, Dhiman, Ranee[1], [2], [3] , Avada, Indian Pundit, Sojo, Aneet, Pramathesh, Aativas, Sid, Pra, Ajinkya, Lakshmi, Govind, Shilpa, Bharathi, Shankar, Mytuppence, Azad, Pawan, Pankaja, Guria, Shruti, Vishnu,Nasrajan and Richa. Click on their respective names to read their posts on Teachers : Aaj Kal. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.