CHENNAI: Some things in life are better appreciated in hindsight. Teachers, for instance. They play the most important role in shaping and moulding us, yet, throughout our growing years, we spend our hours wishing for rain holidays and a respite from the exams we are threatened with periodically. We rejoice when they mark themselves absent for it only means a free period to talk, doodle, or irritate our fellow mates. It is only in the years when life dumps its unending responsibilities on our fragile heads. We spend our Sunday afternoons thinking back on those carefree years of wild abandon, wishing we could relive them, that we truly appreciate and say a silent prayer for the noble souls who guided us through the most complicated text book lessons ever so patiently.
Art has immortalised many of the world’s greatest teachers and pedagogy’s progression over the centuries. Artists have represented teaching and learning in classrooms and outside its confines. Tributes have been paid to educators from the past and the present through masterpieces.
During the Middle Ages, education was primarily centered around religion. In the sixteenth century, teachers came up with a curriculum that moved away from this and instead, focused on Ancient Greek culture. Religious teachings were replaced by scientific studies, physical fitness, philosophy, literature, and art. It was envisioned as a wholesome way of developing all faculties. Rather than equipping oneself for the afterlife, the syllabus now concentrates on the matters of daily human existence.
This shift was brilliantly portrayed by Italian Renaissance painter, Raphael, in his fresco on the walls of the Vatican, titled The School of Athens. At the centre of the painting are Plato and Aristotle, perhaps representing the two extremes — Plato’s spiritual concerns and Aristotle’s worldly realities. Pythagoras sits below, sketching geometry while Heraclitus writes on a marble bench. Euclid, the mathematician, teaches young students, and Ptolemy, the astronomer, is depicted with his celestial spheres. The painting captures the broad spectrum of teaching and is a celebration of the great teachers who shaped our thinking.
The Red School House is another painting in art history that documents a form of teaching that exists no more. Painted in 1873 by Winslow Homer, it shows a young teacher with books in hand, standing with the image of a one-room school in the background. These one-room schoolhouses were very common in the late 19th century and early 20th century in rural areas, where one teacher taught all academic subjects to children of varied age groups in a school with a single room. Children also helped the teacher with tasks like cleaning. This system may have been gradually phased out but art has served to be a visual documentation of the practice.
In contemporary times, there have been artworks that show post-Covid cyber classrooms, representing collaborative methods of teaching where the students become engaged participants and hierarchies have been removed.
Art has always glorified the mentors who have inspired generations to excel. On Teacher’s Day today, let us be grateful for their guiding light as we fumbled in the darkness of ignorance.