A teacher who is truly happy and supported in their work does not need extra fanfare and check ins — “are you happy?” — on Teachers’ Day. If they already enjoyed respect and trust in the day-to-day, they also would not need the minister of education to send a letter of thanks on the eve of the holiday. In fact, the grander the ceremony, the starker the contrast is with their everyday reality. Every Sept. 28, schools hold events in teachers’ honor; parent associations deliver gift boxes and education authorities send elegant greeting cards, but once the hoopla dies down and teachers return to the classroom, many are left with a sense of exhaustion and bitter irony. Teachers’ happiness should not be reserved for the holidays alone. To that end, here are 10 things — addressed to schools, parents and the education system — teachers would truly like to receive. First, to schools. We must return to the original purpose of education and reject internal conflict and division. One: Stop holding teaching hostage to performance data. Test scores can never fully capture growth; we must let go of the obsession with performance metrics and allow teachers and students to return to the simple process of learning and growing together.
Two: Do not let “campus incident resolution councils” become tools for disciplinary crackdowns. The purpose of the system is to safeguard education, not to expand administrative power or suppress dissent. Schools should be protected spaces, not arenas for power struggles. Three: Stop driving wedges between teachers. Administrators and educators are partners, not opposing camps to be divided through unequal treatment. Only by ending internal conflict can teachers fully exercise their expertise. Next, to parents. Teachers must be seen as professionals, not service workers. When parents think of themselves as paying consumers, teachers are expected to become around-the-clock service providers. Complaints are lodged at the slightest issue, while teachers must be paragons of virtue and withstand whatever is thrown their way. Four: Allow teachers to clock out. Drawing boundaries between work and personal life is not a sign of laziness. Five: Respect teachers’ professional discretion. Try trusting teachers’ judgement before complaining about classroom management. Six: Remember that the teacher-parent relationship is a partnership, not a client-server dynamic. What teachers truly want is not a gift box, but for someone say: “Let’s figure this out together.”Finally, education authorities must serve as a real backstop, not a public-relations front. If conflict resolution is simply to appease public criticism and always demand that teachers apologize, even the most beautiful greeting cards offer little comfort. Seven: Guarantee fair pay and working hours. Education should not become a “sweatshop” in which teachers work without overtime pay and must be constantly available. Eight: Establish the facts before taking a position. Each unreasonable demand given in to is another blow to teachers’ dignity. Nine: Protect the teaching environment. Those outside the profession should not dictate teaching decisions, and education must not be consumed by political theatrics. Ten: Make it unnecessary to ask teachers “are you happy?” on Sept. 28 by empowering them in their work on the other 364 days of the year. When the day arrives that these 10 wishes are realized, teachers would at last be able to feel that the system has their back — and that the phrase “Happy Teachers’ Day” would truly carry weight. Chin Ching is an educator. Translated by Gilda Knox Streader