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Let’s Make Our Teachers Living Heroes Of Our Time (3 Garrison J.S.S., Liberation Barracks; Sunyani)

By Nana Effah Twumasi Ampofo
Opinion Lets Make Our Teachers Living Heroes Of Our Time 3 Garrison J.S.S., Liberation Barracks; Sunyani
JUL 27, 2014 LISTEN

'Bitter are the roots of study, but how sweet their fruit.' Just like so many politicians, artists, astronauts, entrepreneurs, footballers and surgeons, we are who we are today partly because of our great teachers. However, when we venture into adulthood, we often put our student life aside and keep them in some archive rooms in our minds, due to overzealousness to start a new and fascinating 'grown-up' life. But as we get settled in life and time goes by it is only natural that we go back into the files from those archives of our school days.'Those were the best days of our life.'

Indeed, the reminiscence of the Junior Secondary School days always remains with us and keeps haunting us. Most of those sweet memories were because of people who were agents of change and helped us climb the ladder of success in life, our gallant teachers of 3 Garrison Junior Secondary School (Sunyani Barracks) at the inception of the JSS system especially the 1993 year group. It is true that we can't bring back those days but we can revisit those days to express our gratitude and appreciations to those teachers for what they made of our young vulnerable minds to guide us to success.

President Kennedy once said 'Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation.' At the centre of the education chain is the teacher. However, regards for teaching and teachers is a long lost tradition in Ghana. Most teachers live on moderate salaries and then proceed to an unfairly low retirement wage.

Teaching has been described in many ways by many experts including; the art of patience, the art of growing humans, the art of shaping mind and the rest. In spite of all they do, the Ghanaian society have never been too appreciative and grateful towards teachers, no matter how much they have contributed to expanding that which makes us different from any other species; knowledge.

It is out of this realization that I want to congratulate and salute our gallant teachers to remind and motivate others to join hands in appreciating the dedication and efforts of our past teachers as a way of appeasing and cheering up our teachers for the better development of Ghana. Often as we leave the lower levels, we come to develop a sense of true respect and affection for those teachers who devoted their whole life heartedly to our intellectual growth. According to Robert M. Hutchins 'The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives' and that is what those teachers did to us.

The results of teaching cannot be seen in the fruit of a day's work and it remains invisible for as long as fifteen to twenty years. I am highly blissful to see the bunch of graduates of 3 Garrison JSS on most social media in highly respectable and responsible positions in Ghana and abroad all as the results of the sacrifices of some people we seem to have forgotten (our teachers).Our dreams began with teachers who believed in us, who tugged, pushed and led us to the next level in life and always poked us with a stick called truth when it mattered.

These teachers were expected to reach the highly unattainable goals of empowering us with knowledge with improvised and inadequate tools, but yet they made miracles to accomplish such impossible task.None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because our teachers bent down and helped us pick up our boots. And thus why I want us to look back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers and show gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. We have a deep and genuine appreciation for the work you did. We consider your work an honourable and important profession, and it is our goal to see that you are treated with the dignity we award to other professionals in society.

According to Donald Quinn 'If a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in his office at one time, all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn't want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or dentist, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher's job.' We appreciate the challenge and skill involved in the work you do and applaud you who have dedicated your lives to teaching.

I am therefore calling on all of you who attended 3 Garrison JSS (1991-1996) especially those in the Ghana Armed Forces and the public sector to join forces to recognize, honour, and show respect for our experienced educators. Teachers appreciate being appreciated and appreciation from old students would be the highest award in their lives. If we fail to appreciate our teachers, then our education is indirectly a failure.

We think of the effective teachers we have had over the years with a sense of recognition, but those who have touched our humanity we remember with a deep sense of gratitude.The simple truth is that, as a people, we must advance in a stratagem that places appropriate value on the contribution that our teachers made to our collective future.

The human mind is our fundamental resource and if they teach the children, it will not be necessary to teach the adults.We know you were not mediocre teachers as you could have told us only stories; you were not good teachers as you could had only explained what you taught us, neither were you superior teachers as you could had just demonstrated what you taught us; however, you were the gallant great teachers who inspired, motivated and kept edging us on with your warmth of humanity.

Thank you all our great teachers for inspiring and giving us the tools to succeed in life. You have made us to equalize the conditions of men and to balance the wheel of the social system. Teachers and old students (3 Garrison JSS) should contact me (email) for a possible plan teacher appreciation programme soon.

Nana Effah Twumasi Ampofo (Bernard Effah)
Email; [email protected]

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