India marks Teacher’s Day on 5 September, the birthday of Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
— philosopher, second President of India, and by all accounts a formidable teacher. The
story goes that when his students asked to celebrate his birthday, he suggested they mark the
profession instead. Schools across the country have done so ever since.

What a three-year-old understands by it

Very little of that history, honestly. What they understand is that today the grown-ups are
sitting on the floor and they are standing at the front, and that this is enormously funny.

So we lean into it. The children take the register. They lead the rhymes. They tell the class
to sit properly, in an unnervingly accurate impression of somebody. One of them will inform you
that it is time for snack whether or not it is.

Why we make time for the role-play

Pretending to be a teacher is not a party trick. Role-play of this kind is one of the most
useful things a pre-schooler can do:

• It builds language. Children reach for vocabulary and sentence shapes they
  would never use in ordinary conversation, because the role demands them.
• It builds perspective. To play a teacher you have to imagine what a teacher
  wants, which is early practice at holding somebody else’s point of view.
• It builds self-control. Staying in role means regulating your own impulses
  for several minutes at a stretch — genuinely hard at this age, and genuinely useful.

The cards

The children make cards in the days beforehand. They are made independently, which means they
are crooked, the glue shows and several are addressed to the wrong teacher. We keep them.

The best moment is always the same: a child, holding the register, calling out
names and waiting for each “present ma’am” with total seriousness.

To every teacher who has sat cross-legged on a mat and been told off by a four-year-old
holding a duster — happy Teacher’s Day.