At some point in our life, we can never avoid the moment that we all have to meet teachers. From the time we decided to start formal learning, teachers have always been by our side. Whatever we become in the future is something that will never be achieved without the guidance of teachers.

As a child grows, the teachers play a very significant role in shaping how the student will behave and act as a member of the progressing society. It is the teacher who does not only help the student unravel the facts and the figures, he must also be his friend, guide and his counsel. It is important that a teacher befriend his students because students respond better to friendship than to authority. If a student looks at his teacher as a friend, all the doubts and hesistation will be gone.

Students, especially kids nowadays, are easily influenced by the actions of the people surrounding them. With the teachers being by their side for a lot of years in their lives, they are prone to mirror their characteristics. A teacher becomes the ultimate role model for his pupils. With this said, not only the skills of a teacher in his profession matters but also how he shows the importance of values and proper conduct to the students.

Teachers play an important role in society. They can be the builder or destroyer of the future hopes of society. As much as parents are responsible for the upbringing of their own children, the development of everyone else’s children comes under the shelter of a teacher’s responsibility. The influence a teacher has on his students may not be direct or obvious, but if he is truly worth the learner’s attention, the evidences and marks of his principles and values will forever be in the mind of students. These will the be found on how the student will walk through his life.

Henry Brooks Adams, an American historian and journalist, once said, “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” All teachers can impart their values to the students and these values will be the guide of students throughout their lives. Teachers are not only a role model to students for only the time they meet but he is the students’ lifetime guide towards the success he wants to achieve.

By: Olivia G. Nisay | T-III | Bataan National Highschool