By Dr Adekunle Mikail
Many parents and non-parents alike like teachers and what they are doing!
They also like the fact that it is on the teacher’s shoulders that their children and wards will stand so as to be able to see the future and realize their potentialities!
But Alas! Most parents abhor the teaching profession as a job for the products of their loins not because teaching profession is a jejune, unrecognised and dignity-absent profession but their behaviour is borne out of their own poor attitude to teachers as private individuals and public office holders.
As private individuals, they treat teachers and teaching job like rags in terms of appreciating their jobs and in showing respect to them for the pain endured, rigour encountered and hours used in overseeing what the parents ought to be overseeing in the first place, everyday for more than 9 months out of 12 that makes a year.
Some parents for punishing their children for their indiscretions and waywardness disrespect teachers in the full glare and presence of their children while some of them come to their children’s schools to harass or beat their children’s tutors on small matters and silly infringement.
Indeed, in many areas of the world, teachers are poorly deal with by the school owners who are the representatives of the parents when taking the Islamic injunctions which has placed responsibility of educating one’s children on the shoulders of the parents into consideration. It is for the sake’s of abiding with institutional and governmental directions and rules which have indirectly placed this function on the teacher’s shoulders again.
This is the reason parents and guardians are to provide the financial and moral requisites’ parts of educating their children after the instructional parts have been conferred on the teachers.
This is premised on the Hadith of the prophet ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam) which goes thus :
” the rights of a child on the parents are for the parents to give him responsible mother, good names ,teach him the Book of Allah and the tradition of the prophet…..”
At the governmental level as public office holders, parents and guardians of children and wards respectively, treat teachers and tutors of their children and wards anyhow by formulating policies and programmes lacking in kindness and human face against their interests and rights. Anything that will be in favour of the good of the teachers are opposed at slight opportunity by parents manning various positions of authority in the land!
Their renumeration and salaries are delayed, cut to minimum or siphoned to private pockets by parents at the helms of affairs across the countries of the world! Sometimes, their emoluments are deliberately miscalculated so as to subject teachers to unnecessary officialdom with a view to commonizing them or making them look ordinary.
Whereas teachers and tutors of children and wards in saner climes of the world are treated with care, honour and respect. They are also categorized in the league of the Medical professionals, Engineers,and Farmers for they are the four providers of basic needs of man via education, health, shelter and food!
Coming down to the giant of Africa, Nigeria as a country, now most parents and guardians do not want their children and wards to become teachers again unless they are not able to secure their dreamed jobs , they resort to teaching and discharge her responsibility with indignant and resentful manners.
This poor attitude of the parents and guardians to the teaching service is borne out of the ways they have treated teachers in both their private and public capacities as parents and government’s representatives!
What they had done to teachers and tutors of their children, they don’t want others to do that for their children and wards! The indignity they had dished out to teachers in the year past, they are now afraid that others will dish it to the products of their exertion while the poor salaries and renumeration they had helped facilitated on teachers yesterday, they don’t want others to help facilitate on their children and wards today.
Whereas Allah, the Lord of the universe and what abounds therein is the first teacher of the prophets and the entire world! He Had taught prophet Adam names of things and what he knew not by pen in the beginning of time! Not only this, He had sent Angel Jubril to the last of His apostles, Muhammad as his teacher ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam) and had still gone ahead to appreciate this his teacher when he said :
” He was taught by one Mighty in power,
Who is endued with Wisdom:
For he appeared in stately form
While he was in the highest part of the horizon…” _Qur’an 53-5 to 7″
And like most students do talk down on their teachers for no just reason, the prophet ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam) instead has been in the habit of appreciating his teachers; firstly Allah, the Lord of the creation Himself, Jubril and the clan of Banu-Sa’ad by serenading them through statements like :
” ‘Allamani Rabbi Fa-Ahsana- Tahdibi, Warubbihtu Fii-Bani Sa’ad”
Meaning:
” My Lord trained me and He trained me perfectly well and I was trained in the hamlet of the clan of Banu-Sa’ad ”
And Whether The World Accept Or Not; The Best Profession Is Still Teaching!
Who is not the product of teacher and his job? Tell me! Whom teacher has not imparted and trained? Whether a nurse, a carpenter , a lawyer and a trader! They are all products of teaching and teachers! And whether the world accept or not; the best profession still remains teaching!
The best profession is teaching ,says Rasulullah ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam) . Uthman b. Affan, reported that the prophet ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam) ,said:
” The best among you is he who learns the Qur’an and teaches it”
In another narration, the prophet ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam) said:
” Surely Allah, the Angels, the inhabitants of the heavens and earth, including the ants in their holes and the fish in the sea are praying for teachers who impart beneficial knowledge on people!”
Imagining You Deeming The One Whom Allah And The Angels Are Praying For….!
Imagining you and people in the public offices deeming the one whom Allah, His Angels, the inhabitants of the heavens and earth are praying for! Thinking that you the products of teaching and teachers are in actuality abusing and raining anger on the very heads that presuppose the positions you are holding today?
Imagining you disrespecting the one whom Allah Has glowingly said of their nobility in His Book as follows:
” Allah will raise up , to suitable ranks and degrees those of you who believe and who have been granted knowledge, and Allah is well-acquainted with all you do”_ Qu’ran 58-11
Allama Yusuf Ali while commenting in the verse above said:
” ( Although) faith makes all people equal in the Kingdom of Allah, as regards the essentials of citizenship in the Kingdom. But there is leadership, and rank and degree, joined with greater or less responsibility, and that depends on true knowledge and insight”
Teachers Are God’s Reign Or Dominion On Earth So Respect Them That You Will Not Perish!
Teachers must be respected every time on earth! They are to be serenaded not only when they are dead but while living! According to an Hadith of prophet Muhammad ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam), he said:
” A teacher is God’s reign or dominion on earth. He who falls on him has indeed come to perdition!”
What can be inferred from the tradition of the prophet ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam) above is that if a nation, a people and a student want to realize their aims or if they are seeking the mercy of Allah here on earth, their teachers must be respected!
Perhaps,this was the joker the people of the past in this land had used as a pedestal to reach the highest and lofty positions they had occupied hitherto , for then and the little we were fortunate to witness during our formative years, teachers were demi-gods who were respected by every Tom, Dick and Harry then!
As the economic conditions of the era past were, parents and governments made sure the teachers and tutors of their children and wards were purposefully care for in cash and kind then. Those that had money pampered them while those that were less buoyant financially also pampered teachers with what they had. For example, farmers then would made sure teachers were not lacking in food items and agricultural products as a way of appreciating what teachers were doing in the life of their children.
However, these days governments and individuals are daily, monthly and yearly pummeling the ones who had trained them to be what they are ! It is now instructive than before in order to change the order of things to positive ones, all hands must be on deck in making sure that teachers’ rewards are not forgo to heavens but be reaping here on earth too while respect, honour and dignity must be reconferred on teachers and teaching profession as it was before now so as to return our sanity.