While anyone and everyone is eulogizing the virtues of teachers and the teaching profession, I who was a teacher cannot help but think it is a once-in-a-year discriminatory activity, and unnecessary celebration. Now is a good time as ever to end it.
In a famous English poem written two centuries and more ago, the profession of teaching was given pride of place as the school master looked after the minds of the younger generations. But this was relevant to an agrarian society. Today, every profession - and there are dozens - requires training, certifications and qualifications. A hundred years ago, a lot of these jobs would not be worthy of the label of profession, but then we are not living a hundred years ago. We need to accept the facts of life, welcome change, and move on. The great teacher today is undoubtably the Internet. Even if we are not teachers there is no escaping the fact we continue to be lifelong learners, learning a lot through the Internet (and away from it) from input of people of all walks of life. If we wish to survive in the twenty-first century then this is not an option, we have no choice. Not that the Internet is god but it is the main source of information from people with all kinds of backgrounds. They provide the input. Don't misunderstand me. I've taught for three decades and more, so what I say is not an off-the-cuff remark. We have to accept the fact teachers are not the only people in society who contribute to development of learning. There are others from a variety of professions, most of whom are not professional teachers. Let's not discriminate against them. Teaching was once-upon-a-time considered to be a vocation, more than a profession. No longer is this true. Priests probably are the only people who are still seen to be in a vocation rather than a profession even if they are teachers or are partly in the teaching profession. We need to honor plumbers and toilet cleaners, and others too, as we do teachers once-a-year as a lot of teachers today are easily replaceable, in most cases, by the Internet. Will there be Humanities Departments in universities thirty years from now? Plumbers and others who take care of basic human waste, in my view, are more important as our cities, towns and villages without them and proper plumbing would become a hell in which to live our daily life. Actually, in some parts of the country, and Goa, too, you need great breath control - on the level of Baba Ram Dev - to survive! Don't underestimate the importance of people who belong to the plumbing and toilet-cleaning profession. We owe them a lot. And, we need to keep a special day every year in their honor. On Plumbers Day every proud owner of a toilet needs to clean his or her own toilet to get a whiff of their job and experience. Only through cleaning toilets can we understand the importance of this profession and make our hearts beat with gratitude for the plumbers and toilet cleaners, and not only for teachers and others from respectable professions. We need to honor other professions, too, otherwise get rid of this discriminatory Teachers Day forever.
