In any given country or a local community there is always a need for quality teachers. When the rest are gone for conducting their profession, it is the teachers who teach the children in their formative years and in the years preceding their entry into the productive workforce. What I meant by teaching is just not a reference to the act of imparting of knowledge related to basic subjects to the children, but more importantly it is about teaching the young ones how to live their life in a wholesome manner. The teachers, especially the ones who teach the young kids, have to go to extraordinary lengths to prepare for their teaching hours with the young children. The teachers in general should be aware that , children for all walks of societies and back ground may attend their school and that such children's guidance from the parents. especially the underprivileged parents, may be sup-optimal or non-existent. The teachers, hence should realize the real expectations of their job function responsibilities and should take all the relevant measures to enable them to fill the void in the children's life.
If this is done properly, we can expect the children to become ideal citizens later and they also can be expected to become ideal parents and grand parents in life much later.
Constantly engaging the minds of the children is a tough job when we know that they cannot express their point of view in clear communications. Making it worse are other factors in the children's life such as bullying , abuse, threat, coercion etc., that have severe consequences. A teacher, in addition to engaging the children in the class rooms and counselling sessions, should also talk to their parents, and possibly should understand the community that the children are growing up and should also have keen sense to know what the children need, to properly blossom to their next stage of learning and living.
Since the children have different potentials and backgrounds, the teachers should be aware that their most valuable resource, their time, should be spent with the right kids, using the right time-span and in the right way. The teachers, thus, besides mastery over their subject areas. should have deep spiritual knowledge, knowledge about their culture/tradition/sacraments etc., to reinforce their faith in good behaviours and in taking pride of their culture and traditions and also in believing in the prevailing righteousness of the universe .The idea of birth & death, meditation and mental well being, importance of faith/prayers, knowledge about soul-astral body-gross body composition, education on prevalent value systems, the stories, historical records of good winning over evil etc., should also be part of the greater educational syllabus till they graduate out of their school or college. I would say that this imparting of life lessons should continue probably till at least the first year in the university.
Since the teachers need to sacrifice their whole life not only in grooming the children in the right way to make them into ideal citizens, but also to invest their time in learning all the things that are outside their core subject areas, and which are vital to the interests of the children, they need to be recognized well by the local community and their country for their contribution in shaping the future of the country itself by properly educating the children. The least we can do is recognize that this is a tier-1 super-important job and thus the society should increase their remuneration to dispel their mundane immediate worries (including financial) , so that they can use their peaceful, intelligent mind and their valuable time with the children for their betterment.
Hari Om!