A Google Doodle is a distinctive, temporary modification of the logo featured on Google’s homepage. These modifications are created to commemorate various occasions such as holidays, events, achievements, and significant historical figures. The first Google Doodle was created to honor the 1998 edition of the annual Burning Man event in Black Rock City, Nevada. Crafted by Google’s co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, this Doodle served the purpose of notifying users about their absence in case of server crashes. The responsibility for subsequent Doodles, including ones for major holidays and an alien landing on Google, was taken up by early marketing employee Susan Wojcicki. Originally, cartoonist Ian David Marsden, an external contractor, designed Google Doodles until 2000. At that point, Page and Brin asked public relations officer Dennis Hwang to design a logo for Bastille Day. Since then, a team of employees known as “Doodlers” has been responsible for organizing and publishing the Doodles.
World Teachers’ Day is celebrated annually on October 5, and Google is marking the occasion with a special Doodle. This observance has been in place since 1994 and is co-convened with the support of the International Labour Organization (ILO), UNICEF, and Education International (EI). The day commemorates the anniversary of the adoption of the 1966 ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the status of teachers, which established benchmarks for the rights and responsibilities of teachers, along with standards for their initial preparation, ongoing education, recruitment, employment, and teaching and learning conditions.
In 1997, the Recommendation concerning the status of higher-education teaching personnel was adopted to complement the 1966 Recommendation. World Teachers’ Day recognizes the contributions of teachers to the improvement of education and underscores the need for support to allow them to fully deploy their skills. It is also a day to reconsider the future of the teaching profession on a global scale. The theme for the 2023 World Teachers’ Day is “The teachers we need for the education we want: The global imperative to reverse the teacher shortage.” The 2023 celebrations aim to draw attention to the critical importance of stopping the decline in the number of teachers and then actively increasing their numbers globally, as stated by UNESCO.
In a joint statement by Ms. Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, Mr. Gilbert F. Houngbo, Director-General of the International Labour Organization, Ms. Catherine Russell, Executive Director of UNICEF, and Mr. David Edwards, General Secretary of Education International, they expressed, “We call upon countries to ensure that teaching is transformed everywhere into a more attractive and valorized profession where teachers are valued, trusted, and adequately supported to meet the needs of every learner. Bold actions must be taken if we are to reverse the current decline and successfully increase teacher numbers.”