Our teachers are our champions: Mahira Khan

Photo: courtesy publicity

Pakistani actress Mahira Khan has been making waves across the globe ever since her debut in Bollywood.

Recently, the actress attended the Global Teacher Prize, organised by Varkey Foundation in Dubai on Sunday and she shared the importance of teachers in her life.

“Teachers have the power to make a shy little girl like me believe in her dreams, so yes, teachers do matter,” she remarked in a moving tribute to her teachers during the Global Teacher Prize ceremony.

 “We walk on red carpets; we get to support the causes close to our hearts. People like us; I talk about sportsmen, actors. We do all kinds of things and people around the world celebrate our success but the world’s teachers, the very people who shape the next generation aren’t thanked enough. You [teachers] are the true stars,” she added.

Earlier, she also addressed Global Education and Skills Forum on Girls’ Education. She remarked that while she was scripting her speech she could not remember the time she didn’t have a teacher.

“My mother was a teacher so you can imagine what my childhood was like flashcards of vowels, Dr Seuss, blackboards and books.”

She also shared that her mother was the only teacher in her school to offer remedial education. Many autistic children would come to their house. “I noticed my mother joking with them, laughing with them, answering their questions like she was their best friend. Sometimes it made me jealous. She [my mother] had a unique way of talking to them. They loved her. She loved them.”

“I didn’t get it then and I get it now; all learning is understanding. I have to care about you to understand you.” According to my mother to be a good teacher it is important to “make the child trust you because they are vulnerable,” she said.

“I stand here before you all because of the all teachers that believed in me,” she remarked, adding “Today I have voice and platform and I plan to do exactly that make a difference as much as I can.”

Children can do whatever they want as long they have champions and our teachers are our champions, she stressed. Towards the end of her speech, she quoted Dr Seuss’s Oh the Places You’ll Go!: “And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed! (98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.) Kid, you’ll move mountains. May we all move some mountains.”