Md. Mehadi Arif
Teachers are, no doubt, the lighthouses of all ages, the torchbearers of modern civilisation. A teacher, in a broader sense, is not merely a teacher rather he is a mentor, a friend, a facilitator, a director, a guide and what not. But the word ‘facilitator’ is best suited to evaluate a teacher standing in present time. If we consider a classroom as a family then it is normally taken into account that a teacher is a guardian of a big family named ‘school’. For instance, in a family, a guardian has to critically manage six or seven members or more or less but a teacher has to handle 60-70 students in a classroom in our country. That is to say, their contribution as a teacher is not trivial at all. There is no way to ignore their guardianship.
That teaching is a noble profession is not unknown to us. In Bengali, a good teacher is always considered as Guru, an idol of so many hearts. It is a mammoth task to be a guru in modern age as today we meet many teachers in the nook and corner of our institutions but a few are gurus. It is a hard nut to crack to trace a guru in this competitive postmodern world as morality is given away in an inexpensive rate from their morality dictionary. In high school level, a teacher’s teaching attitude is enveloped owing to the covetousness of opulence. Sudden change of financial sector intensifies their temptation to engage deeply to hanker after money.
Now, zero per cent teaching and hundred per cent profit has become a sole concept of spreading education. It has become a trend of business in such a way that now a teacher acts as a catalyst of gaining the profit. When a teacher pays heed to earn a lot they cannot be a mentor, because, their centre of thought is to gulp money like a bull whale that swallows every prey with delectation. Now they count every minute exquisitively. So to be a mentor is a matter of derision to him as he has lost his conscience.
In a renowned school, if we keep our eyes on the teachers, on the one hand, we will be able to discover that their appearances in a classroom before the students are like a demon. But on the other hand, in his business world where he teaches the students privately, behaves like a doctor in a clinic. A renowned doctor systematically avoids his working days and deeply engages himself in a clinic to get high profit. To render a great service is merely a trifle issue of their thesaurus.
Nowadays to earn a lot of money is a boon and to teach properly in an institute is a bane to a teacher. In a classroom, a teacher is a discriminatory figure to the students. Most often they are not mentors but tormentors. So their favourite students have the access to enjoy their life to the lees. Rest of the students think themselves as alien and thereby suffer from inferiority complex. As a result, they are misguided and mismanaged. Here a classroom is like a ship where a few students stay in a cabin and many students are obliged to stay on deck. A teacher can illuminate the mind of a student. Again he can nip in the bud of a student’s talent owing to his selfishness. After exams, when a teacher evaluates a student’s quality he (teacher) cannot justify him (student) properly as that teacher is immensely motivated by his evil-will.
But in many cases, students of our era solely depend on the attitudes of their teachers, not their parents. They vehemently dislike their parents as the parents always keep pressure on their tiny brain and they always chatter before their tender children every now and then. Considering the parents as ‘Chatter Box’, nowadays the students have become immensely tempted by dint of a teacher’s nature and way of living. So as a guardian of so many tender hearts, it should be a teacher’s bounden duty to take the responsibility of them and at the same time it should be their task to motivate them, guide them and inspire them so that they get the proper ambience to show their latent talent. Otherwise students will turn themselves into a psycho-patient from a normal student.
An ideal teacher through his qualities can shape a child, would him like clay.
It is high time teachers should change their brutal attitude towards students and took many time-befitting steps to bloom them like a fresh flower. Our teachers should not confine themselves only in earning money voraciously rather they should bear in mind that they are the point of a circle which is revolved by the students.
A teacher should not forget that he is an emblem of credence. If he misbehaves with students like a hostile stepmother then where the students will get shelter, where they will express their feelings, their emotions? If we just have a look on foreign countries, we will be dumbfounded to notice the behavior of the teachers. How friendly and interactive they are! How brilliantly they are managing their dear students! Aren’t we best suited to follow them to teach our students for making them as the worthy citizens of Bangladesh? We can try if we have the pure heart like a great teacher. If we behave with our students like the principal of the Bollywood movie ‘3 Idiots’, then we will have to lose our great students, we will have to lose our innovative children. Teaching is not a business, it is a promise. If we want to be a teacher, we will have to cast away the tendency from our heart to rich overnight being a teacher. Teaching is a noble profession, not a fashion. If our teachers become the mentor of innumerable hearts then, we will definitely get a nation full of great men.
Our government should keep an eye on the teachers who are very much neglected in their fields due to low salary structure. We wish our teachers will be mentors, not tormentors.
The Writer is Md. Mehadi Arif, Teacher & founder of MATE & Eso Alokito HOI.
