Teachers' Day
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40 free Teachers' Day trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Almost every country sets aside a day to thank its teachers, but few agree on when. India keeps it in early September, the United Nations calendar puts World Teachers' Day a month later, and dozens of other countries have picked dates of their own, often the birthday of a scholar, a reformer or a ruler who cared about schools. The stories behind those dates say a lot about what each country values in a teacher. This quiz covers the day itself and the people it celebrates. There are questions on why India marks 5 September and how schools there spend the day, on Teachers' Day customs from East Asia to South America, and on celebrated teachers of every kind: ancient philosophers, the pioneers of early childhood schooling, and the classroom heroes of Bollywood, Hollywood, children's books and television. It works for a school assembly, a staff-room party, a classroom warm-up or a family round at home. Most questions are pitched so that a general audience can reason their way to the answer, with a handful of harder ones for the quiz captain, and every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01India celebrates Teachers' Day on 5 September, the birthday of which philosopher who became its second president?
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan asked that his birthday be kept as Teachers' Day when friends and former students wanted to celebrate it in 1962. He had held philosophy chairs at Calcutta and Oxford.
Q 02Which United Nations agency mounts the World Teachers' Day campaign each 5 October with Education International?
UNESCO
UNESCO signed the 1966 recommendation on the status of teachers that the day commemorates. The observance itself was only established in 1994.
Q 03On Teachers' Day in some Indian schools, who traditionally takes over the teaching of classes to show appreciation?
Senior pupils
Senior pupils take charge of lessons for the day, while the usual timetable gives way to celebration, thanks and remembrance.
Q 04Which teacher, herself educated at the Perkins School for the Blind, taught the deaf-blind Helen Keller to communicate?
Anne Sullivan
Anne Sullivan was only 20 when she arrived at the Kellers' Alabama home in March 1887. She stayed on as Keller's companion for the rest of her life.
Q 05Aristotle was hired by Philip II of Macedon in 343 BC to tutor which of these future rulers, then a teenager?
Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great studied under Aristotle until the age of 16. His schooling ended when his father went to war and left him in charge of Macedon as regent.
Q 06Taiwan marks Teachers' Day on 28 September, a date chosen to commemorate the birth of which ancient Chinese thinker?
Confucius
Confucius is honoured there as the model master educator. Temples across the island stage a ceremony for him that begins with drum beats at 6am.
Q 07Which actor plays Dewey Finn, a struggling guitarist who poses as a substitute teacher, in the comedy School of Rock?
Jack Black
Jack Black shares the screen with real young musicians. Director Richard Linklater scouted the country for talented 13-year-olds to play the class band.
Q 08Which New Hampshire teacher was chosen from more than 11,000 applicants for NASA's Teacher in Space Project?
Christa McAuliffe
Christa McAuliffe died with six crewmates aboard Challenger in January 1986. Her backup, Barbara Morgan, later became an astronaut and reached the space station in 2007.
Q 09In the TV drama Breaking Bad, Walter White starts out as an overqualified high school teacher of which subject?
Chemistry
Chemistry is what Walter White teaches in Albuquerque, where money is so tight that he also works part-time at a car wash.
Q 10Which former First Lady persuaded Congress to proclaim a National Teacher Day in 1953 at an Arkansas educator's urging?
Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt took up the cause after a letter from Mattie Whyte Woodridge of Helena, Arkansas. Congress did not name another National Teacher Day until 1980.
Q 11Which reformer, widely regarded as the first Indian female teacher, opened a girls' school at Bhide Wada in Pune?
Savitribai Phule
Savitribai Phule started the school in 1848 with her husband Jyotirao in the face of strong opposition. By 1851 the couple ran three girls' schools in the city with about 150 students.
Q 12Which former President of India, nicknamed the Missile Man, collapsed and died while giving a lecture at IIM Shillong?
APJ Abdul Kalam
APJ Abdul Kalam was 83 when he fell ill mid-lecture in July 2015. After leaving office he had gone back to teaching as a visiting professor at several institutions.
Q 13Which physician-turned-educator opened her first Casa dei Bambini, or Children's House, in a poor district of Rome?
Q 21Turkey's Teachers' Day, 24 November, marks the day which leader accepted the title of head teacher of its schools?
Kemal Atatürk
Kemal Atatürk was handed the title by his cabinet in 1928, only weeks after a law adopting a new Turkish alphabet came into effect.
Q 22South Korea moved Teachers' Day to 15 May to match the birthday of which monarch, creator of the Hangul alphabet?
Sejong the Great
Sejong the Great was picked for a day that began with Red Cross youth members visiting their sick former teachers. Carnations are the customary gift.
Q 23Which actor played Mark Thackeray, a teacher who wins over a tough East End of London class, in To Sir, with Love?
Sidney Poitier
Maria Montessori
Maria Montessori enrolled 50 or 60 children, aged from about two to seven, when the first house opened in San Lorenzo in January 1907. A second followed that April.
Q 14Which comedian played English teacher John Keating at the fictional Welton Academy in the film Dead Poets Society?
Robin Williams
Robin Williams earned an Oscar nomination for the part. The story is set in 1959 and follows a group of boys who take their teacher's advice to heart.
Q 15In the United States, National Teacher Day falls on which day of Teacher Appreciation Week, the first full week of May?
Tuesday
Tuesday was chosen by a vote of the National Education Association's assembly. Until then the NEA had marked Teacher Day on the first Tuesday in March.
Q 16In which country do students present flowers, candles and joss sticks to their teachers in a ceremony called wai khru?
Thailand
Thailand's wai khru took its modern form at Triam Udom Suksa School in 1941. Class representatives carry the offerings to their teachers on traditional pedestalled trays.
Q 17Which British actress played Professor Minerva McGonagall, head of Gryffindor House, in seven of the Harry Potter films?
Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith missed only Deathly Hallows Part 1 across the eight films. Fiona Glascott took over the role for the Fantastic Beasts prequels.
Q 18Which student of Socrates founded the Academy, a school of philosophy set in a grove just outside ancient Athens?
Plato
Plato's Academy drew Aristotle at around eighteen, and he remained there until the age of thirty-seven. The school gave English its word for a place of learning.
Q 19Which Bengali poet laid the foundation stone of Visva-Bharati, his university at Santiniketan, in December 1918?
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore chose a name meaning the communion of the world with India. He pictured a seat of learning that kept its rural surroundings.
Q 20Guru Purnima, a festival honouring teachers, is also named after which sage credited with composing the Mahabharata?
Vyasa
Vyasa is said to have been born on this full-moon day, so it is also called Vyasa Purnima. Nepal treats the festival as its own Teachers' Day.
Sidney Poitier took a small fee in return for 10% of the gross. The film adapts E. R. Braithwaite's autobiographical novel about his own time in a London classroom.
Q 24Which film stars Edward James Olmos as Jaime Escalante, a real maths teacher at a struggling Los Angeles high school?
Stand and Deliver
Stand and Deliver is based on 1982, when 18 of Escalante's students at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles passed Advanced Placement Calculus.
Q 25Which German educator coined the word kindergarten for the play and activity institute he founded at Bad Blankenburg?
Friedrich Fröbel
Friedrich Fröbel came up with the name in 1840, three years after opening the institute for young children. The word soon entered English as well.
Q 26In the Mahabharata, which teacher of the Pandava and Kaurava princes demands the archer Ekalavya's thumb as his fee?
Dronacharya
Dronacharya's demand costs Ekalavya his skill with the bow and keeps the prince Arjuna unmatched. India's national honour for outstanding sports coaches carries the teacher's name.
Q 27Which Buddhist monastery in present-day Bihar hosted the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang and housed a renowned library?
Nalanda
Nalanda's library was a key supply of the Sanskrit texts that pilgrims carried to East Asia. Its scholars included Dharmakirti, Chandrakirti and Xuanzang's own teacher, Shilabhadra.
Q 28Which Bollywood star plays Anand Kumar, the Patna mathematician who runs a free academy for poor students, in Super 30?
Hrithik Roshan
Hrithik Roshan's character selects exactly thirty bright students from impoverished families, the number that gives the real coaching programme its name.
Q 29In which Hindi film does Aamir Khan play Nikumbh, an art teacher who suspects a struggling eight-year-old is dyslexic?
Taare Zameen Par
Taare Zameen Par was also Aamir Khan's debut as a director. It is known in English as Like Stars on Earth.
Q 30Which English rock singer qualified as a teacher in 1973 and taught at a first school in Cramlington for two years?
Sting
Sting had already worked as a bus conductor, a building labourer and a tax officer before he trained to teach. His classroom was at St Paul's First School.