Teachers are also students

Teachers teach students. However, does it go the other way round, too? Do teachers learn from students? Here are opinions from some teachers:

“Don’t try to fix the students; we need to fix ourselves first. A good teacher makes the poor student good and the good student better. Our students’ failure is our failure.”

Teachers are defined as a role model, a path to enlightenment, and the embodiment of knowledge. Someone you bow to just as you bow to god. A lot has been said about teachers and teaching as a profession – they mold young minds to create a better future. Therefore, they must work with a sense of responsibility and respect. Indian culture, in particular, has always revered teachers, placing them alongside, if not higher than, parents.

However, a fact that we often overlook is that teachers are , ultimately, students themselves. While their students may go on and become someone or the other, the teacher remains a learner and never really stops learning. When we look around, we find several instances of how a teacher learns from a student:

A teacher’s role is to acquire more knowledge than what the students already know. But more importantly, it is to help students achieve their true potential.

There will be instances where teachers meet kids who have superior intellect, if not knowledge. Teachers should make use of such opportunities to go back to their basics and re-learn tough subjects.

• Teachers need to be more than a source of knowledge. They need to be a guide and a moderator. Think of all the sports coaches whose students turn out to be better athletes than they are. The role of a coach is to coach, not to be a superior athlete.
• They learn patience – over and over again!
• They learn that everyone is capable of learning, but not everyone learns in the same way.
• They learn humility.
• They learn to find love in their worst student.
• They keep up with the times, learning current trends.

In short, teachers spend time learning from experience.

Students who have a healthy rapport with their teachers have a greater chance of success. An ideal student-teacher relationship must be based on mutual cooperation, trust, understanding, and a little bit of firmness, too.

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