Around 140 Grade IV students of Seri Puteri School in Cyberjaya, Malaysia, spent two days and nights using two truckloads of sand to create an artwork the size of two basketball courts on Teachers’ Day, May 27, last year. (Reuters)

INDIA

September 5: Birthday of former vice-president and President of India, Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, a statesman who was once also a teacher. Born in 1888 in Tiruttani, near Chennai, he was the chancellor of University of Delhi. He became vice-president in 1952 and President a decade later. When some teaching colleagues and students asked him about celebrating his birthday, he said they should, instead, commemorate it as Teachers’ Day. And so the tradition began. Apart from students giving individual teachers tokens, every school has some programme planned for the occasion. Although this year it’s a Sunday, it will be celebrated on Saturday or Monday.

CHINA

September 28: Birthday of the world-famous teacher Confucius. Although better known as a philosopher and mathematician, he had thousands of disciples, including Aristotle. Apart from consolidating the ancient texts to give China it’s earliest threads of an education system, Confucius was also a teacher of archery and music among other things. When the Republic of China was founded, his birthday was established as Teachers’ Day.

USA

May 4: At least this year, as decided by the National Education Association (NEA). The vague history behind it revolves around a teacher from Arkansas who in 1944 began communicating with politicians and educationists for a teachers’ day. Congress finally declared March 7, 1980, as National Teacher Day for that year. The first Tuesday in March continued to be the day till 1985, when the NEA and National Parent Teacher Association decided on the first week of May as Teacher Appreciation Week and the first Tuesday in May was voted in Assembly as National Teacher Day.

UN

October 5: Celebrated in over 100 countries, World Teachers’ Day remembers the day in 1966 when the Recommendations Concerning the Status of Teachers was signed. The occasion is celebrated with a slew of activities organised in coordination with agencies like UNESCO, Unicef and Educational International. The activities are a mix of the serious and fun, focussing on the importance of the role teachers play in shaping lives.

What’s on your mind this week

Olympic debacle

As the Olympics kicked off, we began receiving news of debacles, which let us down. When other Asian countries like China and Japan put up phenomenal performances, our country, with a strength of over a billion people, was routed. After the failure, we will investigate the reasons behind it like previous years, but to no avail. We need to import modern equipment from abroad and also appoint fitness experts who can raise the levels to match that of other countries’ athletes. I hope we can be glorious in the Olympics after revamping the existing infrastructure.

Anadadip Chowdhury

Chaos reigned

Dhananjoy Chatterjee is dead, so the morbid drama enacted by the press and public is over. As the clamour surrounding Dhananjoy’s execution reached its crescendo, the baying for blood was rancorous in print and on TV. The question is one of decency. If the legal machinery chooses to be spiteful, it should at least take care to see that it is not sensationalised. The memory of Hetal Parekh and the crime committed against her have eroded over time, reduced to an ephemeral factor behind the recent tumult. We came across opinions galore, for and against the sentence, reeking of insincerity and callousness. Sensation is fodder for idle minds, and the media left no stone unturned in supplying it. Who is interested in the condemned man’s whereabouts, or what he sang on his way to the gallows, except the voyeur? It is ironic that after 14 years, Hetal and her slayer shared the same platform of public sympathy, courtesy confusion enmasse.

Md Tarique Nisar,
3rd year, St Xavier’s College

Better late...

A Shakespearean quote says: “The rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance.” Two weeks ago, Zaki Mubarki had the same opinion in his letter, published in this column. Dhananjoy’s last acts were merely to gain sympathy. Living in prison does not make an individual a better person. According to a recent survey, a rape in India takes place every four minutes. One cannot forgive a heinous crime like what was committed by Dhananjoy. Justice was late, but it was granted.

Raffhat Mir,
Class XII, Loreto Eliot Road

Suffering

People around the country were eagerly awaiting the hanging of Dhananjoy Chatterjee. I think the President has not taken the right decision. Dhananjoy should have been penalised, to make him realise that he had committed a terrible crime. He should have suffered in the same way Hetal Parekh’s family is suffering. By hanging, he suffered for mere minutes.

Surangana Basu

Phone pain

I am often unable to understand whether cell phones are tools of communication or gadgets to “look cool” or for entertainment. The old purpose of a telephone as a device for emergencies or simple communication has changed after the introduction of modern cell phones. They have now become indispensable in daily life. There is no problem in taking cell phones to school, as long as others are not disturbed. Anyone who can explain this to students should be rewarded.

Tanmoy Das Lala,
St Xavier’s Collegiate School

•I am a monsoon cloud

I stay in the sky

When I bring heavy rain

The birds can’t fly.

The sun is covered

When I bring the rain

The heavy rain falls on the earth lane.

The lightening has no sound

But the thunder’s sound is loud

I am very proud

Because I am a monsoon cloud.

Medha Basu,
Class III, Patha Bhavan

• The sinews of the rose petals

Have entangled;

The thorns bleed them to death

Choking in the raptures of a deadly ‘mantra’.

The dried blood sips the fraying fragrance

Of that distant traveller,

Now meeting the horizon

In a tumult of scarlet discs…

And so I sit here dead —

Not died in death,

But faded in sunlight…

Tina Ganguly