When I was 9 years old, I thought that 
a teacher is a titleholder.

A person who stands in front of the class

and teaches while the students 
are listening.

I studied in a low income private 
school for 5 years

there I saw many of my friends are
disinterested in their studies.

Some of them would not pay 
attention in the class

while some of them would 
be absent for days.

I observed that this used to create a lot 
of pressure and stress on the teachers.

And it made me question:

How challenging is it to be the 
only person responsible

in the room for the learning 
of 40 students?

It made me question: Why do students need 
to rely on that one teacher?

When will the students realize that 
there's a teacher in them?

I wanted to do something about this.

So, I decided that whenever and however 
possible, I would try to help my teacher.

So everyday, I would help her with 
taking the class attendance,

writing the daily agenda on the board.

And during practice time,

I would try and help a group of students 
who were struggling with their worksheets.

And when my teacher would be absent,

I would get on a call, and ask her things 
that I can help her with.

Then, as discussed, I'd monitor the class,
give them vocabulary words to learn,

some math problems to solve, 
and sometimes even homework.

Over time, more classmates 
helped me with this.

Slowly, we started taking ownership of 
our own learning in the classroom.

This continued for some time. 
But I wanted to do something more!

Many of my friends needed help with 
reading and comprehension.

Me and my friend Pinky were really 
passionate about reading,

so we started a reading club.

In our club, we had students from 
4th, 5th and 6th grade

and many of them had a low reading level.

We slowly started giving them books with 
more pictures and less words.

And once they were able 
to read those books,

we tried to increase the difficulty level 
by giving them books with more words.

We also discussed things like 
character, their traits,

the main events and the 
central idea of the story.

After some sessions our class teacher 
tested them and they showed an improvement!

We even saw one of our friends grow 
by 1.5 reading levels in just one month!

Eventually,

we also got some opportunities to 
conduct reading circles with elder people.

After these experiences,

I felt really proud of the fact that for 
that brief moment, I was the teacher,

irrespective of my age and 
which class I was in.

I have a question for all of you:

Are there things that you 
are passionate about?

I am sure that it’s a yes, 
because I have many passions.

Some of my passions include cooking, 
knitting, gardening and sketching.

I owe all these passions to different 
teachers that I have had in my life.

Teachers like Mr. Farhan, he is one of the
gardeners in our school

and he helps me learn cool things 
about permaculture.

These days I am learning a new form 
of gardening known as "aquaponics."

Or my Mother, who taught me how to cook

and be independent in the times 
when she is not around.

You may have noticed that 
neither of them

were the titleholders of a teacher.

But in their own ways, 
they were teachers.

Think about it. Do you have such 
teachers in your life?

I'm sure that you do!

In my community,

people do different types of things and 
I can learn so many things from them.

Such as organization from the garbage 
collector, cleanliness from the sweepers,

mathematics from the carpenters, 
cooking from the housewives

and how to run a business 
from shopkeepers.

But do we ever try and think of 
the things that we can learn from them?

No, we think because of their age, 
gender, and the kind of work they do,

they can't teach us anything.

But in fact, they can teach us a lot 
of different things.

I believe that everyone is a teacher.

You are a teacher, I am a teacher.

It don't matter what age we are, what 
gender we are, or what work we do.

I believe that if we start seeing 
everyone around us as teachers,

one day we will achieve that 
perfect ratio 1 is to 1.

Thank you.