5th October - World Teachers Day
No matter where you are in the world, most of us can think back to our school days and remember one teacher who made such a positive impact on our lives. It might have been someone who helped you grasp that tricky concept, pushed you out of your comfort zone, made learning fun, encouraged you to try something new, had a wicked sense of humour, or just simply believed in you, when you didn’t believe in yourself.
Every year on the 5th of October we celebrate World Teacher’s Day. A time to recognise and remember those educators who supported us, encouraged us, and even inspired us to become teachers ourselves, or appreciate the amazing colleagues we have the privilege to work alongside daily.
As the busy school year falls into an organised yet chaotic rhythm, October comes around, and it feels like the year is flying by. It’s easy for World Teacher’s Day to become another date that comes and goes. We don’t often give ourselves the time to stop and reflect on just how significant our role of a teacher is, and the true impact we have on the next generation of innovators.
Before we know it, we are saying goodbye to our ākonga as they move up another year level, begin a new chapter at an intermediate or secondary school, and then finally off into the big wide world – tertiary education, the workforce or whatever comes next.
And then we are left to wonder...
What will they go on to do?
What will they remember from their time at school?
Which skills will stay with them that they have accumulated?
What challenges will they experience?
What career opportunities will they pursue?
What if we could see the impact?
What if every teacher could truly see the impact they have made from the moments they helped create? The student who finally understood something that they had been struggling with. The student who always asked why. The student who realised that they were actually fantastic at problem solving, or the student who found the confidence to speak up because you gave them the space to share their ideas.
We don’t always see where our lessons lead, but that is the beauty of teaching.
Shaping the future of our kiwi kids
Here in Aotearoa, teachers play an important role in not only shaping what our learners know, but how they understand their place in the world. We give students the opportunity to connect learning with the whenua beneath our feet, explore the incredible species that call our country home, embrace mātauranga Māori and Pasifika worldviews that make up our diverse nation, investigate real world problems, and discover the possibilities of STEAM while making learning relevant and engaging.
We help learners develop skills that they will need not only for today, but as they step into a rapidly changing world. Skills that are important now in 2026 will be different to the skills needed in 2030. So how do we keep up?
The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 shows us that analytical thinking, resilience and flexibility, leadership and social influence, creative thinking, technological literacy, curiosity and lifelong learning, among others, are the top 10 most important core skills for today's workforce.
The report also shares the importance of the Education and Training sector in helping to develop these skills. This is where teachers have an incredibly important role to play. We simply do not teach learners what they need to know, but we help them learn how to think, solve problems, ask questions, be a strong communicator, adapt, be resilient, and keep on learning.
It is crucial that we give our learners the space to be curious, to fail, to make mistakes, to test ideas, to think creatively and outside the box, to work as a team, and finally to discover that sometimes there isn’t always a simple answer.
But most importantly, we help them discover what they are capable of.
Sometimes as teachers we don’t always get to see the ending for the children that walk through our classroom doors each year. They may go on to be artists, scientists, engineers, teachers, doctors, builders, environmentalists, or even in jobs that don’t yet exist.
Some days when we stress about a lesson that didn’t go to plan, or one that had everyone completely engaged, it's easy to wonder whether it really mattered. Some students will remember it. Some might not.
But they will always remember how we made them feel
And maybe that is one of the greatest privileges of being a teacher – we don't just teach the next generation, we help shape it.
So this World Teacher’s Day, take a moment to celebrate the amazing work you do, the teacher who made a difference in your life, the teachers who inspire you every day, and the students who remind us why we do what we do.
Because somewhere out there, whether in Aotearoa or dotted around the world, is a learner whose future has been changed by a moment in your classroom.
You just might not know it yet.
Olivia Brien
References
World Economic Forum. “The Future of Jobs Report 2025.” World Economic Forum, 2025, www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2025/. Accessed 17 September 2026.
Lowell, Victoria L., and Lucía Ureña-Rodríguez. “A Framework for Examining the Relationship and Classifying Instructional Strategies, Methods, and Techniques.” ResearchGate, 2023, www.researchgate.net/publication/375086137_A_Framework_for_Examining_the_Relationship_and_Classifying_Instructional_Strategies_Methods_and_Techniques. Accessed 17 September 2026.
“Happy World Teachers’ Day: Why and How to Celebrate in 2026.” Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2025, www.hmhco.com/blog/happy-world-teachers-day-why-and-how-to-celebrate. Accessed 17 September 2026.
Dziak, Mark. “World Teachers’ Day (International Teachers Day).” EBSCO Research Starters, 2019, www.ebsco.com/research-starters/education/world-teachers-day-international-teachers-day. Accessed 17 September 2026.