Haha, in Chinese teacher has high status. In the past we always say the children is the flowers of our country, so the teacher is the gardener who is take care of these "flowers".

Other common ways of saying about teacher:

candle (shining others by comsume itself)

mother (in the past most of the teachers are women)

the engineer of human soul

That's it

                                                                           Chinese Teacher of Tomorrow

                                                                                       Robin.Chen