With online classes for this semester nearing their end, teachers have been preparing their last lectures for the term before the final examinations. Some would deliver them just the same way as they would before the pandemic, only that this time, it’s within the impersonal and detached space of virtual classes. 

Some sedulous teachers might have the means to make their final lessons more meaningful and memorable. Other overly enthusiastic instructors could do more than what their students would expect. Still, others would like things to be focused on themselves. 

It could be so tempting for some teachers, but your students’ lives are never about you. 

Students came to school to learn what they expect to learn believing that education is the only way to get to their dreams. Meeting teachers with whom they can identify and develop an outstanding rapport could be an added benefit, but not part of their expectations. They need to achieve their life goals and satisfying a teacher’s need for affection isn’t part of the deal.

I’ve only been to this profession for quite a little while but noticed a few colleagues who ingratiate themselves too much with their students. Others possess a god-like pride that they believe students should worship them on their knees, or they are too sentimental that they solicit students’ devotion shamelessly.

But as a mentor, your students’ lives are never about you. 

That is because the life you have chosen is a life of mission, not of performance. You signed up for an important undertaking – to mold the minds of younger generations, not to become a star that students must venerate. 

We may follow different philosophies and adhere to various educational principles to guide us in our craft. The theories of education may have had overwhelmed you in some ways, but one thing is sure – education is about your student’s learning. 

As teachers, we “provide the conditions in which they can learn”, to borrow from Einstein. We educate ourselves on a myriad of sometimes conflicting theories not because we want to be the best teachers, but because we want the best for our students. 

You may not agree with some contemporary philosophies of education but would you deny that at the heart of what we do are our students?

We tend to call our approach ‘learner-centered’ because everything we do, we do for the students. We make the system, the methodologies, and the environment work for them. 

Does it mean we are of no value? Far from it. We make learning happen with our students, not just for them. They also need to realize, particularly in this time of involuntary distance learning, that their learning goals will never be wholly achieved without our assistance.

Yet again, our assistance. We are just a hand that guides them at one arm, while we let the other arm do the rest. It’s in fact their own feet which do the walking.

I find nothing wrong with teachers who show genuine affection to their students; that is part of the environment that we need to simulate; we want them to feel welcomed, accepted, and loved. But self-absorbed individuals get to the point of snatching the limelight away from their students and focusing it on them. Teaching no longer becomes a mission but a performance. If affection is self-seeking, then you are doing it wrong.

Instead, teachers collaborate with their students. There’s a variety of opportunities today to collaborate online. We also foster creative and critical thinking. We teach not just for intellectual but also for emotional learning. We need our students to become the adults the world needs to be better. 

Your students’ lives are never about you. It’s all about their own learning. 


“I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.” ~ Mother Theresa