Through an intergovernmental conference by the ILO and UNESCO in 1966, the concept of observing a 'World Teacher's Day'emerged to realize the teachers' status as per ILO's principles. This idea to commemorate a teacher's devotion to the construction of civilization and to celebrate their contribution and labor in molding the cognition of learners gained momentum on the 30th anniversary (1996) of the inception of this day by the declaration of UNESCO that October 5 will be observed as the World Teacher's Day. The conscience about the term 'teacher' may have diversified paradigms, depending on the society and culture. However, the essential existence of teachers in any society, ranging from humans in the wilderness tocivilization, demands no explanation. Yet, the necessary existence of something can never point out its undeniable and incorruptible values in society when you consider the existence of microbes in our environment, causing havoc in public health. Apart from this, you cannot but look upon a 'World Teacher's Day' as considerable when you look at the theme for this year 2024 reading, "Empowering Educators: Strengthening Resilience, Building Sustainability."
This year's theme revolves around three broad leitmotifs: 'Empowerment of Educators', 'Strengthening Resilience,' and 'Building Sustainability.' The first thing that comes to the fore is the term 'educator,' which represents a teacher but hardly replaces the vibes of a teacher that civilization gets used to experiencing through Socrates to the teachers around the globe now. However, 'educator' is a global narrative with a guide, a mentor, an instructor, or a mediator representing the teachers who educate society. Here, the deliberate choice of a teacher as an educator may not be misleading when we consider that UNESCO considers education to have a formal and institutional aspect,while ILO underscores to justify teaching from the perspective of a profession that a person chooses to survive by earning. In this regard, an educator represents those who educate as a professional body and have a formal and institutional sphere to disseminate this education as a part of their profession.
Thus, the theme points out those who are educating the learners through formal and institutional ways. Now, we can move on to the issue of empowerment. If you ask the question yourself, who empowers the educators?' In response, it needs to be mentioned that the learners are the mightier forces who can work as agents of realizing the empowerment issue of the educators. It happens when an educator belongs to the learners and the learners own the teachers. However, the issue of empowerment has a broader ethos in the case of the teachers. Here, the empowerment issue translates to a teacher feeling satisfied in their profession, and satisfaction emerges through the state provision with all the necessary amenities a teacher requires for their successful and influential professional life. Here, a congenial teaching atmosphere comes to the fore. The teachers, students, teaching materials, and congenial learning atmosphere comply with the aspiration of a teacher's empowerment to ensure a teacher's well-being. The state plays a significant role in restructuring the state apparatus so that a teacher feels empowered in this profession.
From the national, regional, and global perspective, resilience gains a visible position for varied cases and causes. Resilience teaches adapting to mental, physical, and financial adversaries. Adversaries emerge in life, and resilience teaches how to cope with these situations for an effective existence.As global citizens, we have experienced how environmental deterioration, war among countries, trade imbalances, and cyber-attacks affect the world. These global-shocking incidents are not altogether justifiable and justified. Again, the dis-harmony between teacher-student relations is visible. Intolerance of others is the central force behind all these mentioned incidents.Viewing these,it seems that civilization is losing its resilience.Psychological research tells us that resilience is cultivated by learning. Education can lay out hands-on teaching about resilience. Prioritizing relationships, joining groups, honoring the views of others, holding others, helping others, being mindful, and being positive in thinking are the components thatnavigate to the characteristic of resilience.
A teacher navigates the learners to inculcate resilience in classroom scenarios that extend outside the classroom. Before they advance to navigate the learners' cognition to resilience, a teacher must embrace the ethics of twenty-first-century teaching-learning pedagogy. Thus, teachers and students should own the ethics of resilience, though a teacher must first cultivate it before transmitting it to the learners.
Education was included in the Sustainable Development Goal roadmap proposed by the United Nations. The member states will adopt and implement this roadmap in 2030. The educational paradigm translates sustainability as qualitative improvement in any sector capable of retaining steadily. It is unlikely that any considerable change in the academic sector will experience fluctuation. Now, the empowerment of educators and the strengthening of resilience is viewed from the perspective of the quality of sustainability. The new generation's education claims massive change and adjustment in pedagogy and learning scenarios. The teacher has been asked to become resilient and adjust to the revolving situation. However, nothing will pay back if the educational sphere cannot ensure sustainable positive change. Sustainable development leads the paradigm to the height of success and ensures no system loss and wastage of public funds and incentives.
On October 5, the world celebrates Teacher's Day, realizing the contribution of these professional bodies to national development. As a civilized nation, we can never deny the significance of this observance. However, we should ensure that teachers strengthen resilience so that they cannot prove vulnerable to any pedagogical readjustment. Consequently, learners will be able to inculcate resilience in the development of learning processes. Yet, any change or readjustment in the case of teachers, learners, and pedagogy must comply with sustainability. Then, a sustainable form of education can be considered standard and ideal. It ensures that the teachers, instructors, or educators feel empowered. Hence, we can expect that the Teacher's Day 2024 theme must be understood, discussed, and tried for national-level implementation for the current generation and the generation to come.
The writer is a BCS Cadre (General Education) and Educational Researcher
