October 5th World Teacher’s Day Did you know that in 1966 The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization declared the status for teachers. October 5th is World Teachers’ Day.
On this day we celebrate all teachers around the globe. This day commemorates the anniversary of the adoption of the benchmarks regarding the rights and responsibilities of teachers, and standards for their initial preparation and further education, recruitment, employment, and teaching and learning conditions. It is a day to celebrate how teachers are transforming education but also to reflect on the support they need to fully deploy their talent and vocation, and to rethink the way ahead for the profession globally.
This editor knows that teachers should be supported and empowered to innovate and transform their teaching from within. Do not tell us what we need to do. We already know what to do. We are the ones that are in the trenches of this system. Please stop writing scripts for us to follow. Teachers are not puppets and neither are the students to be read to. Throw scripted educational curriculum away. Why get a teacher certified if all we have to do is read a script to teach Reading, Math and Science. Not saying much for what is going on in the field of Social Studies. We have no idea how those in power think about changing our history. You can’t change history. We know what has happened. Just look around at the institutions that surround our education system.
Education itself must be transformed. In this transformation of education, teachers need to play a central role, as witnessed at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Teachers have reinvented their role in order to face changing and emerging demands. Most of them had to re-organize and adapt teaching and learning processes, particularly related to online and remote education. They had to take part in the activities to safeguard the material safety of learners and their families, providing socioemotional and psychological support to students and their families.
I say let teachers do what they do best, which is teach! Let students learn from the experts that the higher education system created them to be. If curriculum is being created so that teachers
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Teachers Making a Difference | Issue 3, October 2022
