There’s a peculiar smell that never leaves you once you’ve been a student—the smell of chalk dust. It clings to memory far longer than it ever clung to the blackboard. On this Teacher’s Day, as I sip my coffee and drift through the corridors of my own schooling, I realize that teachers have been less like people and more like bookmarks—marking chapters of who I once was, and gently nudging me toward who I could become.
I remember one teacher in particular, who had the uncanny ability to turn even the dullest subject into an adventure. She taught mathematics, which for me was less a subject and more a lifelong feud. I was convinced numbers had conspired against me, but she stood there with her piece of chalk and a knowing smile, almost as if she had a secret deal with the numbers. And maybe she did—because slowly, grudgingly, I began to see that algebra wasn’t a personal attack on me. It was simply another language waiting to be understood.
What fascinates me about teachers is their extraordinary patience. They repeat the same explanations a hundred times, never knowing which attempt will finally crack open a child’s mind. It’s like planting seeds in a desert, never sure which tiny grain of sand might hold enough water for a miracle. And yet, they sow anyway. That, to me, is both madness and magic.
Of course, not all teachers are saints. I’ve had my share of the terrifying ones, the ones whose mere footsteps down the corridor could freeze time and turn your handwriting into hieroglyphics. But even they, in their strictness, were teaching us something—that discipline, though often bitter, is also a kind of invisible armor life insists we wear.
Years later, I find myself understanding lessons I didn’t when they were first taught. A teacher’s influence, I realize, is not a one-day affair. It seeps into the cracks of our choices, whispers in our moments of doubt, and sometimes shows up years later when we least expect it. The voice that tells me not to quit, the nudge that makes me stand a little taller, the stubborn belief that I can try again—those are teachers still speaking, even in their absence.
So today, on Teacher’s Day, I bow not just to the ones who stood in classrooms, but to life itself—the greatest teacher of them all. Life, with its pop quizzes of heartbreak, its surprise exams of failure, and its occasional gold stars of joy. Life, with its unending syllabus that no human ever truly finishes.
The chalk dust may have settled, but its mark remains. And perhaps that’s the real gift of a teacher—that long after the classroom is locked and the lessons are done, you still carry a piece of them within you. A line of wisdom here, a spark of courage there, a reminder that knowledge is less about answers and more about learning to ask better questions.
