Importance and Qualities of a Teacher from different Points of View

Importance:

No better tributes have been paid to any man on earth than to the teacher. East or West, everywhere he has been respected and worshipped. In the ancient India teacher was ranked next to God. In the West he is called, the “architect of nation”, “maker of man”, “the maker of history”.

Like the gardener, the caresses young human beings and looks after their physical, mental and social growth and development. It is said that God has created man after his won image, the teacher fashions the child, after his won image. It goes, “As the teacher, so is the pupil”.

According to the Hindu point of views, the child receives second-birth at the hands of the teacher. First birth,.the physical one front he parents. The teacher plays the most prominent role in moulding the habits, tastes and the character of pupils. He turns the child from animality to specialized human form. Books may teach a child, but the teacher educates.

Manu the ancient Indian sage says, “A teacher is the image of Brahma, a father is the image of Prajapati, a mother is the image of Earth”. The famous Indian- prayer runs that “The teacher is Brahma, the creator, he is God “Vishnu, he is God Maheswar. He is entire Universe, obeisance to teacher”.

Cicero said 2000 years ago : “What greater or better gift can we offer the republic than to teach and instruct our youth ?” His word spoken in Greece about 2000 years ago holds true even today, truly the quality of a nation depends upon the quality of” its teachers. Humayun Kabir says, “Teachers are literally the arbiters of a nation’s destiny”-

The Secondary Education Commission (1952-53) also points out “every teacher and educationist of experience knows that even the best curriculum and the most perfect syllabus remains dead unless quickened into life by the right methods of teaching and right kind of teachers”.

The opening sentence of the Kothari Commission Report speaks very high of teachers, “The destiny of India is now being shaped in her classroom”. Whether the teacher is in the best equipped room of a most up-to-date school, whether the teacher is at work with a small group of students or is on a television screen that is seen by tens of thousands; whether the teacher is a person or a programmed text-book, it is unlikely that the students will get superior education unless the teacher is superior.

To this Mudalier Commission Report has stated, “We are concerned that the important factor in the contemplated educational reconstruction is the teacher—his personal qualities, his education qualities, his professional training and the place that he occupies in the school as well as in the community.”

Qualities of a Teacher from different Points of View:

1. Teacher is the most vital single factor in the system of Education. It is the teacher, who matters most as far as the quality of education is concerned. Really, the well- equipped teacher is a supreme factor in education. The framers of the Second Five Year Plan observed, “At all times, the teacher is the pivot in the system of education. This is specially the case in a period of basic change and re­orientation.”

2. Teacher is the back-bone of society. It is particularly so in remote village. He stands as an outstanding figure among the illiterate and semi-illiterate families. He is their friend, philosopher and guide.

3. Teacher is superior guide. At the back of every great man, a good teacher is there who kindled enthusiasm fostered confidence and guided him to the ^way of progress. A conqueror of the statue of Alexander the Great said, “I owe my birth to my father, but life to my teacher.”

4. Teacher is the nation builder. Teacher” shapes the children who are potential leaders of tomorrow.

5. A teacher affects eternity. Henry Adams stated so well “A parent gives life, but as parent, he gives no more. A murderer takes life, but his deed stops there. A teacher affects eternity, he can never tell when his influence stops.”

6. Teachers should command respect. Pupils have their likes and dislikes. They feel that teachers must be human, friendly and “One of us.” They should be good natured, jolly, with sense of humour and should not demand respect from their students.

7. According to the Headmaster, the teachers should be obedient to duty, hardworking, intelligent, cooperative and hopeful. They should try for best results and to raise the status of their school.

8. Parents like the teachers to be highly sympathetic to the paying individual attention.

9. The higher educational authorities have their own whims. Judging teachers from examination results standpoint, they try to punish teachers with a view to setting them right. They want teachers to be meek and humble. They want also teachers to work under the worst conditions. The teachers should be resourceful even if they are asked to work  in adverse conditions of poor house accommodation, ill-quipped classrooms even without a black-board The authorities should sincerely try their best to improve the lot of such teacher.

10. The educationists have given a long list of traits and qualities essential for a good teacher. Teacher is also a man; he is not a superhuman being.

11. Teachers must possess a devotion to profession with a strong sense of vocation; teachers should go for a true devotion to teaching. He must work in a missionary zeal. He must be somewhat prepared to sacrifice his self in the cause of education. The famous Sanskrit Poet of India, Kalidas says, ‘if the teachers’ scholarship is just earning bread, then he is no better than a shop-keeper selling knowledge”.

12. Once a teacher, always a teacher should be the motto. He must not oscillate and make teaching a stepping-stone to other vocations. A renowned educationist remarks, “The strength of school depends upon the permanency of its teachers to look teaching merely as a step-gap until they get something better, then it is the school that suffers”. So teachers should consider teaching a calling and not a trade.