Teachers' Day

 

     Teachers are the light in the stormy sea. 

Today I feel proud and privileged as an Indian to be a teacher. Reason? The best teacher that mother India has ever produced, has dedicated his birthday as Teachers Day. This is the highest praise; the best medal; the best award a teacher could ever receive. 

Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was a great Indian academic, philosopher and politician who served as the first vice president and the second president of India. 

Dr. Radhakrishnan is the symbol of an ideal teacher. We celebrate this day in honor of his belief that, “teachers should be the best minds in the country ".

This means that our education system should not only be able to produce the best minds but should also be able to seive out those who are dedicated to the cause of education. 

So far we have failed in this endeavor. As a result, our system is producing students incapable in academic and practical fields. Today, schools and colleges have lost their importance because only written exams have become selection criteria. Besides marksheet no other certificate of merit is issued by schools or colleges certifying the qualities, abilities or potential of an individual. 

As a result, students do not respect the teacher like they admired Dr. Radhakrishnan. Once, In 1921 when he was going to the railway station from Mysore University, his students arranged for a carriage, decked it with flowers and they themselves pulled the carriage up to the railway station! This type of admiration is largey missing today. 

The day also calls for introspection. Every teacher must ask himself; Am I a good learner?, Am I able to inculcate love , respect and mutual understanding in my students? Am I working as a bridge builder among cultures at national or international level? 

In order to achieve this noble height every teacher must read and learn. 

Read & learn, for learning leads to fun. 

Read & learn, for reading lads to fun. 

Books are builders, they do build a man. 

Books build builders; builders of man. 

Books build bridges, across sharp cultural ridges.   

                                                                 Books demolish domestic walls, the love strain flows above the ridges. 

Never stop from reading; never stop from learning.                                            For doomed are those; that stop reading, stop learning. 

For the sky of knowledge is an arc; it invites, it leads.                                          The more you advance, the more it recedes. 

Dear comrades, let's pay homage to Radhakrishnan                                        Let's make reading-learning our pious mission. 

Jai Hind, Jai Bharat.