What is the actual meaning of successful teacher?
For that we have to understand what is teaching. In the traditional way it was 'gurukul' where it was not just knowledge, it was total character and intelligence development. But we are now only memorizing the text books. Much more information today is available over the internet and a fairly intelligent student can learn and understand on his own, much more than what is taught in the class room. So a teacher's role is not to be a small computer and in the normal sense will be called successful if he/she does that. So a really successful teacher should be able not only impart scientific knowledge but bring about an understanding to the student, make the students intelligence flower, make him understand compassion and humility.
"The main objectives of the gurukul system are
1. Self control
2. Character development
3. Social awareness
4. Personality development
5. Intellectual development
6. Spiritual development
7. Preservation of knowledge & culture"
J. Krishnamurti Letters to the Schools Volume 2
"As it is generally understood, a teacher, having already studied certain subjects, informs the student about them. Does this constitute being a teacher just to pass on knowledge? ...They are dedicated to helping the students in their studies, but surely a teacher has far greater significance. ... Knowledge must inevitably be superficial. It is the cultivation of memory and employing that memory efficiently and so on. ... When there is a continuity, a tradition, put together by knowledge and handed down from generation to generation, then the past, which is the accumulation of knowledge, obscures the actual living present. When knowledge becomes routine, mechanical, it makes the brain limited, rigid and insensitive. When knowledge is used for the support of nationalism through wars, then it becomes bestial, appallingly cruel and utterly immoral. Knowledge is not beauty, but knowledge is necessary to bore a well. The whole technological world is based on knowledge and that world is taking over our lives. If we allow knowledge to be the sole authority, and hope through knowledge to ascend, then we are living in a fatal illusion. We are saying that knowledge has its place in everyday life but when knowledge is the only substance of our life, then our life must be confined to mechanical activity.
Is the communication of knowledge the only function of the teacher as it is now passing on information, ideas, theories and expanding these theories, discussing various aspects of them? Is this the only function of a teacher? If this is all a teacher is concerned with, then he is merely a living computer. But surely a teacher has far greater responsibility than this. He must be concerned with behaviour, with the human complexity of action, with a way of life which is the flowering of goodness. Surely he must be concerned with the future of his students and what is the future for these students? What is the future of man? What is the future of our consciousness which is so confused, disturbed, messy, in conflict? Must we perpetually live in conflict, sorrow and pain? When the teacher is not in communication with the student about all these matters, then he is merely a lively, clever machine perpetuating other machines.
So we are asking a very fundamental question which is: what is a teacher? It is the greatest profession in the world, though the least respected, for if he is deeply and seriously concerned, the teacher is bringing about the unconditioning of the human brain not only his own but that of the student. He is conditioned and the student is conditioned. Whether he admits it or not this is a fact, and in relationship with the student he is helping both the student and himself to free consciousness from limitation.
A relationship is a process of learning. A relationship is not a static affair but a living movement and so it is never the same. What it was yesterday it is not today. When yesterday dominates in relationship, then relationship is what it was, not a living thing. Love is not what it was. When the relationship between the teacher and the student has this element of companionship, of mutual unconditioning and humility, sensitivity and affection are natural."
Revolution in Education ~ Osho
"Till today what has been the work of a teacher? What work has the society taken from the teacher? Society says that we are taking the work of teaching and educating our children from the teacher. But on looking deeply it is found that the society also takes the work of passing on all the old diseases, blind beliefs and false knowledge into the minds of new generations, through the teacher. The society does not tolerate a teacher who is revolutionary, because the day the teachers become revolutionary a new society will be born. The teachers becoming revolutionaries can become the basic cause for the change of the whole society. That is why an attempt has always been made not to allow the teacher to become a reactionary and retrogressive. He is given a lot of respect, it is true, but society gives that respect to the teacher only while no ray of rebellion is seen in him. If a ray of rebellion is seen in him, the society begins to strangle his throat.
You may be surprised to know that from the world of teachers, no revolutionary thoughts, no new vision, no new views have ever arisen. The society has always tried to keep the teacher from becoming a revolutionary because it is one of the largest and the most powerful groups of people, and in its hands are the minds and souls of the new generation. If the teacher becomes a revolutionary it will cause a break between the old and the new society, because it is the teacher who hands over the old society into the hands of new society. The teacher is the middle link through which the past enters into the future. The teacher can do a lot, but perhaps he does not even have any such idea as being the forerunner of a revolution.
Up till now the teacher has put all his energies only into adjusting the mind of the new generation to that of the old generations. He has tried to implant the beliefs and attitudes of the old society into the minds of the new generation so that those old ideas reach into the bloodstream of the new generation. The old society respects and honors the teacher just because he is the basis for saving the past. The day the teacher would be rebellious, a new society can be born every day, and the new generation can raise its eyes towards a new life.
But the teacher is not rebellious. In my view, a teacher who is not rebellious is not a teacher at all, and he loses the right to be a teacher. How can a teacher be a teacher who is not rebellious? Without being rebellious, the eyes do not open in the direction of knowledge. Without being rebellious, the soul of man does not come out of its shell. Without being rebellious, one cannot remain in step with life. Can an education, a knowledge, which does not give birth to the independent soul of man, ever be called education, knowledge? It can be a burden, it can be just information, it can be learning but education, never. Education should become the discovery of the soul, but it has not happened like that. The teacher has
not yet acquired the attitude of a rebel. That is why the old, rotten society continues to live. What has already died remains alive in some form or the other."