On Teachers’ Day, we usually think about our teachers in the classic classroom settings, ones who stood before us, the one who taught us literature, history, mathematics or science. I remember how some teachers were so charismatic that it is due to their influence that the course of my entire career changed. How a good teacher can increase your interest in a subject. We remember their lectures, their discipline, their motivations and even their scoldings which we once disliked but later understood. But perhaps the meaning of a teacher is way larger than the classroom. Everyone is a teacher and so is every circumstance. Everyone we encounter teaches us something or the other. Some teach us through love, they make us understand the true meaning of kindness, patience and companionship while others teach us through dismay, reminding us that expectations can hurt, people can change and some may never change at all no matter how hard you try.
They teach us that not every relationship is supposed to last forever. Some people just cross our path to educate us about life and go. Some people are only part of the chapter of life and not the entire story. Some educate us by staying while others teach us by leaving. Some people come and inspire us in life and let us know what we truly want to become and some are just there to make you understand what we should never become. And perhaps that is the very reason that in the classroom of life there are no permanent friends or enemies. There are simply some people who enter our life, spend a phase and intentionally or unintentionally leave a lesson behind. A difficult person teaches us how to hold our peace. The plans that fell apart or failed, teaches us resilience. A betrayal teaches us correct acumen about who gets access to our spheres. A friend may educate us that it’s safe to let our guards down. And sometimes the biggest lesson of kindness we come across is through strangers and most importantly now when I am on the other side of the table as an educator I realise, even an honest question from a student can teach you humility. You know how much is left to know.
In the classroom of life it’s not just people who teach us. There are multiple teachers and the best I know is our own mistakes. Our mistakes are very strict teachers often demanding fees far more than any classroom could. We humans are such that we love to see things in binaries: black or white, good or bad even we categorise people around us in binaries good people- bad people, friend- enemies, those who help us – those who hurt us, but life, it is rarely that simple as binaries of black and white it often deals in shades of grey. Sometimes the person we admire the most teaches us through their drawbacks, the person who hurt us the most becomes the very reason of your strength. Some people whom we can barely call acquaintances leave us with lessons of life that stay for years. Perhaps the wiser way to look at life is not by asking ‘what did the person do to me?’ but it should be ‘what this person has taught me’?. This vantage point may not relieve you of your pain from hurt or excuse the person’s wrong doing it simply allow us to have a healthier outlook towards life. It allows us to look from a fresher perspective to transform our experiences into wisdom. And I think this is where the true beauty of teaching lies. It is not always that a person knows that they are teaching or they are a teacher but indeed every one is a teacher.
A parent teaches, a colleague teaches, a student teaches, a friend teaches, an enemy teaches and the greatest of all LIFE teaches. So, we should not just celebrate our classroom teachers who have taught us from the curriculum. Let us also pay gratitude to all those who have taught us lessons that no curriculum contains, lessons of love, loss, courage, hurt, forgiveness, boundaries, failure, hope and many more that are ineffable. And in this journey perhaps we realise that we are all teachers’ in someone’s life. Sometimes we may not even know whose life we have influenced to what extent or whose journey we have detoured because of something we have said or done. Afterall in the classroom of life there are no permanent teachers and no permanent students. We keep changing roles. Today i teach you Tomorrow you may teach me. And perhaps that is the most beautiful part of it. Thus, on this teacher’s Day wishing a very happy teacher’s day to all of you, to those who have taught us, to those who continue to teach us, and to those who never know they did and above all to LIFE- the one constant teacher that never leaves the classroom whose lessons may not always be easy but are always worth learning.
*The author is Asst Professor, Shri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce, University of Delhi., PhD – Centre for European Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University
