Song Qingsong, Lyricist of ‘I'll Be You When I Grow Up’.
Words/Song Qingsong
The 10th of September this year is the 40th Teachers‘ Day in our country. Teachers’ Day is also the first industry-based holiday in our country, which fully reflects the respect of the state and society for the profession of teachers. So why should we respect teachers? I would like to start from four aspects.
First, there is a tradition of respecting teachers in China and abroad. In ancient China, Confucius, who can be called the representative figure of teachers, was worshipped as a saint and enjoyed the worship of people for generations. There is also the traditional social ethic of ‘heaven and earth, ruler and relatives’, which places teachers side by side with heaven and earth in the worship of nature, ruler and king in the worship of power, and ancestors in the worship of ancestors, so it can be seen that the status of teachers is very high. Foreign countries are the same, people do not begrudge the highest praise to teachers, teachers' work is known as: the engineer of the soul of mankind; the cause of education is known as: the most sacred cause under the sun. It is precisely because of the tradition of respect for teachers that the civilisation of each country and each nation can be inherited and developed.
Second, every dedicated teacher deserves respect. There are a large number of teachers, and I think they can be divided into two types. One is the discoverers and creators, who can be thinkers, scientists, artists ...... They have their own inventions and discoveries, their own theorems and laws, their own works of science and technology, art, and even systems of thought. They are the pathfinders and leaders of civilisation and can be called masters or patriarchs. Secondly, they are the inheritors and disseminators. Most of our teachers belong to this type, they learn the knowledge, skills and experience of their predecessors, digest, absorb and summarise them, transform them into the language of teaching, and disseminate them to their students, and the so-called passing on of the flame relies on these teachers. Teachers have different abilities and knowledge, but they are passing on their own discoveries and creations, their own learning and knowledge to us, and we have no reason not to respect them.
Thirdly, the teacher is the one who really wants us to be better than him. There was a popular song in the 1980s and 1990s, ‘As long as you live better than me’. However, think about it: who would genuinely want you to live better than him? I think there are only two types of people: one is the parents, it can be said that every parent wants their children to be better off than they are. Parents who live far away from the mountainous areas will do their best to pay for their children to go to the university, study and work in the big cities, and use their own hard work in exchange for the happiness of their children. Then there are the teachers. Our primary school teachers teach us with what they have learnt, but they never want our studies to stop at primary school, but try to send us to secondary school. Our secondary school teachers are more for our secondary school exams, college entrance exams worry, put up a fight, so that students get into a better school, and to students beyond their own pride ...... sincerely hope that we are better than him is bound to be the people we should respect.
Fourth, for the future we must respect teachers. Education is not a generational thing, it is a generational endeavour. We have grown up under the training of teachers, and many of us have higher abilities and status than our teachers, do we still have to respect our teachers? The answer is yes. Chairman Mao Zedong said in a letter to his teacher Xu Telli: ‘You were my husband twenty years ago, you are still my husband now, and you will surely still be my husband in the future. ......’ Let's follow the great man's sentence: teachers not only once educated We follow the great man's sentence: not only have teachers educated us, they are still educating our children and grandchildren, and they will certainly educate our children and grandchildren in the future ...... Our children and grandchildren will grow up under the education of teachers. Mr TAO Xingzhi said: ‘In the hands of teachers, the destiny of the young is in the hands of the nation and the destiny of mankind.’ Respect for teachers is not only a historical heritage and a practical need, but also concerns the future of our families, the future of the nation, the country and even the future of mankind.
Teachers' Day has been established for nearly forty years, and we hope that respecting teachers will become a good social trend, and we also hope that teachers will all have good teacher ethics and become people who should be respected and deserve to be respected.
25th August 2024
(Original title: ‘Why We Should Respect Old Teachers’)
Song Qingsong: a famous lyricist, research librarian, and vice president of the Chinese Society of Music and Literature. He is a winner of the National ‘May Day Labour Medal’ and the ‘Five One Project Award’ of the Central Propaganda Department. His representative works include ‘When I Grow Up I Become You’.
