Teachers as Change Agents of Today

Every existence is a state of consciousness. As the famous philosopher Rene Descartes said: “I exist because I think”. Without thought, without self-consciousness, existence – even if it is – has the same value as the mirror has for a blind man. This is that basic level of life and existence where a teacher stands. It is the teacher who evokes ‘self-realization’ in the child, creates his consciousness, and thus paves the way for his endless journey in the realm of existence. This is the fundamental and perhaps the ONLY role of a teacher. A teacher cannot produce potentiality in a child in the same way as a farmer cannot impregnate a seed with power to grow into a mighty tree. That power is already infused in a seed by the Almighty God. The role of the farmer is only to ‘sow’ the seed in a fertile soil, expose it to proper light and required amount of moisture, and then believe in the certainty of its growth as a natural law.
The role of a teacher is equally like a facilitator. Every child is a potent seed that needs the right exposure and teacher is like the farmer who is responsible for this divinely-ordained task. How a teacher fulfils this role is what makes him distinctive and successful. We are all familiar with “The Parable of the Sower”by Jesus Christ. A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it. And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bore fruit a hundredfold.
Every teacher can decide for himself or herself if he or she wants to be a ‘casual teacher’ – just ‘standing on a wayside’, working in a school merely for a salary and treat the children as passers-by who just came on their way, or he or she wants to be a ‘rock’ giving no fertility at all to a child or a thorn who gives...