Teachers inspire hope and justice

For broadcast on 2CH Sydney, 21 July 2013.

Uniting Justice national director, the Reverend Elenie Poulos, addressed a crowd of education graduates at the University of Newcastle recently, claiming they were the most important graduates a university produces.  She said:

Doctors, musicians, scientists, engineers, physicists, artists, economists – they are all important, but as a cohort, none of them has potential to influence the shape and colour of our society more than teachers … the most important influence a teacher has is in how their students come to see themselves – as individuals and as people in relationship with others and the world around them.

She challenged teachers to treat their students with dignity, sure in the knowledge that even if no one else values them for who they are, their teacher does.

Teachers can have immense positive influence in the classroom, and in the lives of their students.  Thank God today for the teachers in your life who made a difference.

I’m Rod Benson for the NSW Council of Churches.