It gets almost too easy for us in this age of fast paced technology to take for granted important components in our life, one being our educators. Educators, teachers, guardians of knowledge; however you’d like to put it, they are those whom guide us, motivate us and most of enlighten us to be better, more informed and more prepared for the uncertainty that is the future before us. It’s pretty common for us students, to get swept up with the workload, the ‘crazy deadlines’ and huge readings, to take a step back a truly acknowledge the amount of work and effort that is put in by our educators.

At Monash we are fortunate enough to have access and the privilege to be taught be overall great educators.In effort to recognize all the hard work our educators here on campus, from the 9th to 11th April 2018, the Educator’s Appreciation Day campaign was held. This event was a collective effort carried out by all the school representatives. Their booth was set up at the Monash Foyer from 10am-5pm throughout the three days.

The booths provide a means for which students can write notes and or send presents that will be sent to their intended lecturer or tutors of their choice. Besides that, there was also a photo booth set up so that students can take photos with their favourite educators after which the pics will be uploaded on social media. As an added incentive to participate in the photo booth session, participants were entered into a lucky draw to win a RM200 cash voucher to the store of their choice.

Overall, it was loads of fun and really great to see the outpour of love and admiration the students had towards our beloved educators. It was also really nice to see our educators outside the confines of a lecture theatre or tutorial room and just letting loose a little by posing goofily or grinning out of the sides of their teeth during the photo sessions.

Of course when it comes to these sorts of appreciation campaigns, it is with great hope that this notion of appreciating our educators goes beyond the duration of the campaign, rather the core of message of which would be taken and practiced in our daily lives. As suggested by this quote by Henry Brooks Adams ‘A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops’. We all owe our educators a lot as they have an everlasting effect on our lives.

Article by Sharifah Azlinah

Photos by Derrick Ser and Joseph Ma