From Chanakya to Korean pop, the students of St François Xavier have left no genre untouched when it comes to pleasing their teachers. They celebrated Teachers’ Day a few days in advance because they wanted teachers to have a day off on September 5, which was a Sunday this year.
At the primary school event, Archisman Ghoshal delivered a speech on Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan – scholar, academician and philosopher whose birthday is celebrated as Teachers’ Day in India. âRadhakrishnan believed that education was the passport to the future and that true education meant more than acquiring academic and professional knowledge,â said the class VII student. His friends presented a PowerPoint presentation on Radhakrishnan as well as the teachers at the school.
Riddhima Das from class IV sang Heal the world by Michael Jackson and Debanjana Dutta from class VII recited the poem by Henry Derozio To Hindu College students.
There was a group dance and skit in which the early days of the 2020 lockdown were re-enacted. The milkman and hawkers are pictured coming into a home and stating that they are going on leave from the next day due to the lockdown. But the man of the house – a teacher – refuses to take the easy way out. His daughter teaches him how to use Zoom and afterwards he starts online lessons.
âIn real life, our teachers knew about the online courses and taught us how to use them,â said Kashvi Dahiya, a class V student who was the narrator of the play. She recited a poem Shiksha ke jyot jagate shikshak, written by his mother, and also moderated the event.
For the high school, the host was Ashmit Palit. He began with the words of young crusader Malala Yousafzai that a book, a pen, a child and a teacher can change the world. âTravelers travel the world without fear because they have the pole star as a reference. Likewise, our guiding stars are our teachers, âsaid the student in Class XII.
Tamanna Bandhyopadhyay recited, Sanjeevani Saha danced to Guru Brahma and D. Tanushree sang Permission to dance, a song by Korean boy group BTS. âIt’s a happy song and it’s the first one that came to my mind when I was asked to play something,â said the class XII student. “I don’t know if all the teachers know about K-Pop but yes, two of them answered me later to ask me questions about the artist.”
Students in grades IX and XI also performed a skit about some incidents in Chanakya’s life, briefly highlighting her messages of knowing her strength, stepping out of her comfort zone, and treating knowledge as power. âI have admired Chanakya ever since we studied him in class VI. He was a great teacher, âsaid Pranoy Ganguly, who played the character in the sketch. “We too have dedicated teachers and even though I text them at 11pm, I get help instantly.”
The incumbent principal, Anil Srivastava, turned the tables and saw Chanakya from the teacher’s perspective. âThis is the kind of power and influence that teachers have. Like Chanakya, they can transform the life of their student and in turn their kingdom or their society, âhe said, recalling the history of the jungle school which had a common program for all. animals.
âThere was immense dissatisfaction in this school because despite all the efforts, the sloth could not run, the fish could not fly and the elephants could not jump. The moral of the story is that Mother Nature didn’t create everyone the same. It’s up to the teacher to identify each child’s unique talents and develop them without leaving anyone feeling left behind.
Administrator Ajay Chopra acknowledged how teachers went the extra mile during the pandemic. âTeacher training courses don’t teach Zoom, but your teachers have learned it perfectly on their own,â he told the students. âTeaching is considered the most honest, sincere and trustworthy profession, so teachers are often given government duties, such as presiding over elections. But in Uttar Pradesh earlier this year some 1,700 teachers died of Covid after serving in the election, âhe said.
Teachers, he said, deserve respect not only from students but also from their parents. âI feel sad when I hear some parents ignore calls from teachers or speak rudely to them. Please ask your parents to be courteous because at the end of the day it’s your progress they want to discuss, âsaid Chopra.