For as long as I can remember, May was a busy month when I was younger.
There were two important celebrations that required hours of rehearsal: mother’s day and professor’s day. -This time I won’t talk about mother’s day not because I don’t think it’s important, but because I would turn this into a long list of reasons of why I miss my mom-.
So this time, I’ll talk about Professor’s day.
What is it?
In Mexico, one day in May is specially for students to demonstrate their appreciation towards the professors. This can be made in many different ways: when I was in kindergarten and for the first years of elementary, they would make us wear a custom and dance a song about how important they are in our lives… Now that I think about it, I don’t know what was the point of all that, if they were the one telling us what to do, no surprises for them in their special day!
Back in that time, I never gave a second thought to the importance of these people in my life, they were the ones grading, and I got along better with some of them and not so good with others, but when I grew up, I got to appreciate them better and understood how much it takes to be a good professor in Mexico, going against an outdated system, and working with children that might not have any kind of support in their families. For many children, the school represents a safe space, and the professor is the role model they don’t have at home. Being a professor in my country it’s easy, but being a good professor takes a lot of courage, indeed.
Moved out of curiosity, I researched if there was a professor’s day in Finland. I couldn’t find anything, but I’m sure I could’ve missed something…. I wonder what is like to be a professor in a country known for having the best education system in the entire world, but most of it, I wonder What represents a professor for Finnish children?… Do they also wear customs to show appreciation? Do they think they are a role model?? Do they find them brave? Or every professor is as good as the previous one and at the end of their life they can only remember a sequence of faces and names??
I guess I’ll never know. (Oh, Finnish mysteries)….
