Chance or Choice?

To be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner. Instruction begins when you, the teacher, learn from the learner, put yourself in his place so that you may understand what he understands and in the way he understands it. - Soren Kierkegaard

 

What does it take to be a teacher? Why do some people love to teach? Does a person who teaches or wishes to teach a teacher? I believe that to teach is more than simply a choice among the array of jobs in the society. It is even hard to accept that to think that there is something true about describing the desire to teach as a choice at all. Because if you have a strong inclination toward teaching there is no need to argue whether to teach but rather you are already contemplating how or under what circumstances you need to do. Prior to your becoming a teacher, you have already considered teaching in schools, in institutions of higher education, or in one of the many other social settings in which teaching can occur. I am sure that we know some who have worked for sometimes in other lines of endeavor – business, law, parenting, the medical field, the field of engineering – before the right conditions have materialized. In my case, after my resignation from a public school I tried working in other institutions. Although my work geared toward teacher training but I was still longing to work in a school. So I applied in a university where I experienced teaching college students and graduate students. However, I knew from the beginning that I could not stay there. After almost three years in that institution, I left. I left with a heavy feeling  because of some circumstances that I went through. I was a bit desperate and promise not to teach again. I tried working in an Education Network as an Academic Manager, but I resigned after few months because I could not cope with the demands of the work. And here again I am  back to teaching.

Many of us have become teachers because we were either influenced by our own teachers or we did not have any choice – but to be a teacher. However, in whatever case, still, the fact remains that now you have taken on that interest yourself. This only suggests one thing – you conceived teaching as more than a job – more than a way to earn - although earning is obviously relevant and necessary. Furthermore, you believe teaching to be potentially meaningful, as the way to instantiate your desire to contribute to, engage with, the world. Persons with this choice are not necessarily heroic. This implies a measure of determination, courage, and flexibility, qualities that are in turn buoyed by the disposition to regard teaching more than a job, to which one has something significant to offer.

A person who wants to teach doubtless hopes, at some level of thought of feeling, is person who has a say in what principles and purposes will guide the classroom, as well as how these goals would be realized. A teacher would always supplement and in most cases extend the functional requirements of the job. It may mean questioning some of those requirements. As a teacher, I believe that we need to find ways to pay increased attention to what our students say, think, and feel about what they are learning rather than just delivering them the goods. Or even worse, feeling oblige to teach and finish the lesson by making it more difficult for the students. I also believe that if we have this stance, as teacher, we should be our own final critic. This is a stance that will accompany our profession as teachers as more than routine.