We are teachers. We still go to school like many other went to school decades ago. Teachers are human, teachers are parent to children of other parents. Teacher are parents to diversity of children, with diversity of aptitudes, attitudes, intelligence, behaviour and backgrounds. Children pose diverse challenges and provide opportunities for teachers to mold them.
Teacher have their own challenges, but when they are at school, they are absolutely teachers- A treasure house of knowledge, an epitome of discipline, a reliable parents, a faithful friend and wise sage. Even if we are not, we fake it to make the best out of every student. We remain selfless by heart. Our thoughts are about how we can improve learning and student discipline.
See parents; we are teachers, we are trained primarily to teach. We promised to be the best for your sons and daughter. We learnt child psychology and educational psychology, we learnt driglam namzhag, we mastered our subject, but once at school, our service goes beyond classroom teaching. Our role as teachers compels us morally to care and love every students, to be concerned about their future like the future we worry about our own children. We give so much thought and time for the wellbeing of students, and often at the cost of our own health, time and inconvenience, and our own family.
Teaching is our primary profession, we cannot give anything less than what learner must learn. We use every creative ways possible, and employ diverse means in the classroom to make them understand, to remedy mistakes, to improve what they know, how they speak and how they behave. Classroom is not merely for teaching and learning, it is in these classrooms children are guided to transform, to learn traditional etiquette, practice moral values and spark humane virtues through songs and stories, through discourses and drama. There are no limits to what teachers do and say in anticipation for them to transform. We are earn for what role we play as teachers, yet our roles are complex, multifaceted, subtle and profound. A teachers impact on a child can never be measured comprehensibly, and never be compensated in equal measure to any other profession.
When students are on vacation for few weeks to months and return to school, we notice how quickly they become disconnected from what was learnt in school. During the pandemic when schools closed indefinitely, I have heard parents grieving, impatient about a waiting for schools to resume. 'When will schools resume, my child is unable to study? My son is getting addicted to mobile phone? My son have no sleeping and rising discipline? My daughter never eats on time? We don't know how well to guide them here?' These speaks of how some of our parents have begun to value school over their parenting challenges. For many parents, sending children is a huge relief, not because they are going to school for learning because they found themselves challenged at home, because they saw how children are more disciplined at school than home. Who makes them disciplined at school?
Parents must know that, keeping children happy, entertained, engaged in study and abiding to school norms is a daunting task. Every small things teachers speak and do at school are aimed at making student a better graduate, a better citizen. Teaching them textual matter is not a challenge, making them understand and respond in right ways is; inspiring them to love learning is a challenge. Telling them to adhere to school rules is not a challenge, making them into a discipline child, loyal and committed, focussed and farsighted is. These values cannot be taught only through powerful speeches and advices; these must be imbibed into every child by keeping eyes on them all day, by tracking their footsteps day and night, by offering them opportunities to experience value through various activities.
The beginning of a fabled good student begins at home. Even if the home is broken, if a child receives enough love and care, counsel on custom and discipline, a child becomes a good student. If your children are challenge at home, imagine a home with hundreds of students from diverse family backgrounds in school with diverse experiences, diverse health issues and diverse attitudes. To mould every child to become a successful graduate, every child becomes our own child at school, and every teacher become a parent.
For children from broken homes, and those living with relatives, they long to be in school. We have students who would rather stay in school then go home. For these students, school is safer and warmer than their broken and lonely homes. They trust teachers and find love and care, and meaning of their life at school where friends and teachers surround them. Children must realise the important role teachers play and how important school is for their learning and meaningful life. For many children, their freedom is at school when among their friends, when they have access to playgrounds, better meals and choices of books to read. Children grow meaningfully among their social surrounding at school than in isolation at home. At school, teachers are like magicians, this magic is absent in parents. The magic teachers use on students is a magic parents cannot on their own children.
For children who have parents to look after, rely and trust, love and care may be limitless at home. Parent's love is an essential factor to students' mental and moral wellbeing. The presence of parents make them them a better human. The absence of parent on the other cannot be replaced either by relatives or by providing material luxury. We have found that, even a performing student, good at behaviour and academics, begins to dwindle soon after divorce or separation happens at home.
Dear parents, accept teacher as a parent, after all, they stay with us longer than with you all. You gave birth and looked after them for six years, we look after them for more than dozen years. For some students, teachers are their only parents to rely for change and growth, and school their only good home. We cannot see them as your children, we see them as our own, as our responsibility.
For me, every child is a potential adult, a becoming parent, neighbour and a leader. A leader who must be a productive citizen, a respectable parents, a loyal servant, and a good human being. This vision compels me to go beyond hundred pages of Education Blueprint, beyond civil service statutes, to transform every student to become invaluable national asset. This vision is what guides me and my school to do everything possible in every small ways 'to nurture nationally rooted and globally competent citizen.' We may be impoverished to make ends meet in life, but we are repertoire of hope and path for those we care.
Namgyal Tshering, Dechentsemo CS, Thinleygang.
