October 5th marks World Teachers Day’, an opportunity to celebrate and thank teachers for their important role in our communities and for the positive impact they have on the lives of students.
Teachers are so much more than meets the eye. In fact, students seldom take into consideration that outside of the classroom, teachers and lecturers are human beings too. Inside the classroom, they are often superstars shaping minds. It’s no wonder why they deserve added recognition during World Teachers’ Day.
The day commemorates a landmark adoption of the 1966 ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers.
The document in question highlighted the mistreatment of working professionals in the field of teaching and advocated for not only their rights but their status as incredibly valuable members of society.
At EIT we highly value our lecturers and instructors for their contributions to the field of education, and for many of them, their own teachers inspired their academic excellence in their respective fields of engineering.
Here’s what some of EIT’s lecturers have to say on World Teachers’ Day.
According to Deepak he was lucky enough to have had one of those teachers that instilled a love for a subject, for him it was math.
“I owe my love of math’s to my high school math teacher as she thought me real problem-solving skills which made math’s much more interesting than other subjects. That is when I started to excel in maths. As I grew up, this, in turn, made me choose to be an engineer,” he professes.
It was also during his time at high school that Deepak realized the value of education.
“I have been teaching since my high school days. starting off with my classmates and then my juniors in University. While I worked in a senior engineering position in the Electricity Supply Industry (ESI) I never lost my passion for teaching and working with EIT has given me immense joy. I hope to leave knowledge for students to use in their professional lives that make a positive impact on the community as I do in my job at ESI.”
The numbers also added up for Deepak, who is the father to a set of twins, and outside of education, they get all his attention.
One of the highlights in terms of his teaching career is being recognized by EIT for his contributions to the engineering education sector when he received the Award for Excellence in Teaching and Professional Training a few years ago.
He also goes over post-course feedback from students on how his classrooms benefitted them as they start or continue in their engineering careers.
Upon reflection, Dr Hadi remembers a lecturer who was also a founding member of an engineering firm that presented some courses during his studies.
“I was impressed by him mixing science with practical real-life experience. I certainly was influenced by him since I later founded a company and gave courses at Universities in parallel,” he quips.
Being able to show students living outside of the classroom is important, and as a result, Dr Hadi doesn’t mind sharing that outside of the classroom he enjoys spending time with his wife and daughters, diversifying by reading about science, economy, psychology and politics and practising Mugendo – a form of martial arts that mixes Karate and Kickboxing.
Mostly in the role of a teacher, he believes passion is important, and one of his most memorable teaching experiences attests to that.
“I gave a tutorial in a hospital 15 minutes after my second daughter was born. I just jumped from the delivery room to another room the hospital staff gave me access to present the tutorial.” – Dr. Hadi Harb
Starting his EIT lecturing journey at our Melbourne campus back in 2019, Dr. Morteza (as he’s known among his EIT Family), likes the fact that teaching allows him to link fundamental concepts and theories with the existing techniques and technologies applied in the real world.
“My favourite part about being a lecturer is simply having the opportunity to talk to my students and hear their comments, especially when they share their personal experience with a topic taught during the class.”
It shows again how valuable it is for students to speak up during lectures to give teachers a platform to give insight.
Throughout his time at EIT, Dr. Morteza has seen many students succeed through his mentorship and guidance. Just recently he co-authored a research paper with EIT student, Santosh Ghimire.
Dr. Morteza also presented a paper at the 29th IEEE International Symposium on Industrial Electronics (ISIE2020) that was co-authored by EIT student, Samuel Afotey. Entitled ‘Investigation into the impact of Cable Failure localization methods on the Underground Cable Life Time in a Medium Voltage Distribution Network,’ the paper was awarded the ‘Best Paper Award’ at ISIE2020.
With her strong civil engineering background, it’s no wonder Dr. Evangelista is one for strong foundations – something education provides.
Her favourite quote is; “The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you (B.B. King)”
The best part of being a lecturer for her is to encourage people and students to chase their dreams and never give up on those dreams.
“It is my great pleasure to inspire and encourage students to embrace the opportunities to keep learning and boost their careers,” she says
Dr. Evangelista is also a common returning presenter of EIT’s Technical Topic webinars, covering topics from sustainability in engineering to monitoring concrete structures.
Based in South Africa Dr Rodney mentions he had a terrific English teacher growing up that told him during his high school years that he should consider teaching one day.
“Today, 40 years later, I realize how accurate her comment was.”
For him the teaching experience is based on best value for students, and him being the facilitator of that.
“I want my delegates to log off from every session, believing that was a valuable use of their time and energy. There is nothing worse than sitting through a boring presentation, hearing an instructor read the slides word for word and watching the clock to see when it is going to end. For me, each presentation is seen as a mini journey. If I can foster a desire to learn more, based on certain aspects that have just stimulated the imagination, then I am extremely happy.”
The 2021 edition of World Teachers’ Day will run a full programme until 8 October that gives valuable insights into education, educators and education providers – but will also share meaningful discourse on the importance of educators in the world.
This year there’s a lot of focus on the recovery of education in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. For more information visit the UNESCO World Teacher Day webpage.
