Teacher

In the historic culture of China and Vietnam, teachers play an importance role in their society. There's a Chinese/Vietnamese saying that says, "quan, su, phu" which translate to "king, teacher, and parents." This is the philosophy and practice of order to pay respect to in the Chinese/Vietnamese society. Kings are to be most respected, because kings are believed to be appointed by God to rule; parents is in one of the top three to be respected because parents brought you life. Parents and king are respected because one brought you life and the other is appointed by God, but what make teachers so highly ranked in this society to be respected ranking second? How does the U. S. society rank teachers in the aspect of respect and why?

In the history of Chinese/Vietnamese culture, teacher are highly respected because they are the one that show you the way of life. A teacher in this culture doesn't only teach you how to read and write, but they teach you how to live life and the meaning of life. Teaching the meaning of life sometimes is just teaching a person how to read and write; when you are able to read and write, you can read the teachings and philosophy about the meaning of life, thus giving you the meaning of life. There's another Chinese/Vietnamese saying that can be translated as "if a person teach you one word, that person will be you teach no matter what, or for life". In another word, the saying is interpreted as if you learn one word from someone that someone is your teacher. Knowing one word is wiser than not knowing any word at all.

Kings are appointed by God, parents bring you in to life, but teacher show you the meaning of life. This is why teacher are so highly respected in the Chinese/Vietnamese culture.

That was history, does the Chinese/Vietnamese culture still rank teacher that highly? Well, not as much as in history, but history does have an influence on modern society. In modern Chinese/Vietnamese society, teachers are not rank higher than parents, but still are very highly respected. About thirty-forty years ago the Chinese/Vietnamese culture had a month once a year to pay respect/appreciation to teachers, then they shrunk it to ten days ten to twenty years ago, and now there are only one to three days. The reason the number of days for teacher appreciation has been decreasing is because there are so many more things to do and not enough time in everyone's daily lives. However teachers are still are highly respected; the historical saying are still use to honor and pay respects to the teachers.

How does the U. S. society rank teacher as in the aspect of respect? To answer this question, we have to looked at how our society define teachers. In our society today, teacher is define as a person that teaches. The online encyclopedia from Wikipedia.com define teacher as "those who help students or pupils learnÐ'...including learning and thinking skills." With these definitions, we see that our society doesn't veiw teacher the same way as the Chinese/Vietnamese culture does. We do not see teacher as a person that teachs us