On Teachers’ Day, we thank our teachers for their hard work. We also celebrate this day to remember Confucius, the great Chinese teacher from 2,500 years ago. Well, that’s everything we’re taught about Teachers’ Day. But, the first Teachers’ Day was not on Confucius’s birthday, and it was not about thanking our teachers.

In 1930, Mr. Tai Shuang-qiu and other teachers celebrated the first Teachers’ Day in Nanjing. But there was nothing to celebrate. Teachers were paid very little and not respected. These teachers took this chance to shout out their problems. They had Teachers’ Day on June 6 because the date was easy to remember and near the end of the school year. This action by Mr. Tai and the other teachers was welcomed and followed by teachers from other cities. In 1939, the government made Teachers’ Day a national holiday. However, it was on August 27, the day when Confucius’s birthday was celebrated. Not everyone hailed this decision: Teachers’ Day was never about Confucius, and Confucius couldn’t speak for all the teachers either.

One funny thing was that the government was wrong about the date of Confucius’s birthday. In 1952, people found out he was in fact born on September 28. That was when we started to celebrate Teachers’ Day on Confucius’s real birthday