What makes a teacher the proudest ?

In this post we will bring you two different story from two different people answering the question what makes a teacher the proudest. Hope you like it.

1-  I work as a asst. professor in a private university in Chennai. It's a very posh university, with kids from all walks of life. The majority of the students are from the creamy layer. So when i ask a class of 40 students, "how many are interested in photography?", I counted 6 hands.

I got an opportunity to  teaching photography to students in a rural, region of Tamilnadu (India).  A class of 60 people, who have never touched a camera before. I asked them the same question, "how many were interested in photography ? " I counted 60 hands. I mean 60.

We were discussing photography for a few hours and then, it was time for lunch break and the students refused to go to lunch saying that, they have this opportunity, for only a single day and they don't want to miss any part of it. I was awestruck.

What made me happy was, in the beginning of the class I had taught them a few different ways to wrap the camera around the arm. At the end of the class when they were taking photos of certificate distribution, I saw something similar to this.

(image for representation purpose)

A student who has never touched a DSLR camera before, wrapping the camera around his hand, while taking a photo.

That is when I knew I had made a change.

So the proudest moment is not when you get your PhD, not when you get wished by numerous students, not when you present your first international paper, it is when you know, you have impacted the life of a child/student in a positive manner, that is my proudest moment, I'll cherish it forever.

All rights to this answer belongs to:

Ak Divakar, Been teaching for 2 years and am ready to learn for a lifetime.

2-As teachers we invest our heart and soul into our profession. We stay up late into the night creating meaningful classes, we spend much of our waking hours thinking about the children in our care and we are dedicated to the children who we hope will be the responsible and caring leaders of the next generation.

We are with our students for a year at a time. While for some of us get to interact with  students throughout their education most of us teach them for a year and then they move on. We don't necessarily see the fruit of our labour or witness the blossoming of the seeds that we planted into their young minds and hearts.

Over the years the proudest moments for me as a teacher have been when a young man or woman have stood before me and thanked me for a lesson that deeply affected their life. However more often then not they cannot recall the particular lesson that I taught but are deeply grateful for the way I made them feel.

For many of our students need someone to believe in them. Someone who is going to love them. Someone who is going to make them feel like they matter. Someone who is going to be demanding of them for no other reason then the unshakable belief that in every child is diamond waiting to be revealed. Their young minds don't usually recognise what we teachers have invested in them...years later they do...and when they come back and acknowledge us for making a difference to their lives...those become the proudest moments in a teachers life.

All rights to this answer belongs to:

Leeon Goldman, studied at Curtin University