I have been teaching since 2006, and I fell in love with teaching the first time I walked inside the classroom watching students looking at me with curiosity. I remembered I was also like them scrutinizing the teacher from head to toe.
I was challenged by their gazes. I was even more challenged after I realized that the first class I handled that semester was a group of students aiming for valedictorian, summa cum laude, and all the highest awards.
The challenge was not to surpass their IQ (intelligence quotient) or make them feel that I was better than them. It is a fact that some students have a higher IQ than their teachers. The same thing that when these students age, they will find the younger ones better than them in terms of IQ.
But it is not all about IQ. We know that some people who have high IQ do not succeed in their endeavors or chosen professions. Worst, some of them are not happy with who they are and where they are. Life is just so complicated.
The challenge for me was how to make them learn more and experience a good taste of the real world after graduation. In school, it has been a race on who would get the highest award or who would shine the brightest.
In the real world, it is a race with yourself on how you last long from all the controversies set by unmindful souls or stresses brought about by establishing yourself or pressures in raising a family or a relationship.
Many great leaders I know did not graduate with the highest honors but they do well in their tasks.
Some people with high IQ may have the highest position in the organization or the highest-paying job but their health is taking its toll on them or their relationships at stake. Lucky for those whose events in their life perfectly blend with them.
I did not have the opportunity to teach children; I taught budding adults. But they are all the same – curious about their teachers and waiting to learn new and meaningful things.
And teachers, whether they teach children or adults, have one thing in mind – to bring out the best in them. Well, I do believe so.
Teaching is not the only job left so everybody wants to be in that field. It does not belong to the high-paying job category.
Teaching is a profession, but it is also a vocation.
It takes a lot of courage to handle different personalities with different levels of reasoning. It’s either you get your students’ favor or they frown upon you and talk about you in their group chats.
It takes a lot of patience to deal with varied behaviors from active to passive, from ambitious to creative. You need to adjust your facilitative skills and all your styles to capture their interests.
It takes a lot of love to understand that each student brings with them either loads of happy thoughts or sad experiences when they get inside the class. All of these affect their performance and behavior.
It is not easy to become a teacher, especially in basic education. Some parents would leave all the responsibilities to the teachers to make their children learn. Even the foundation of values which should emanate from home is left to the school.
It looks like it has all become the responsibility of teachers. But the best part here is they have embraced it. They share their knowledge and experiences so that the same knowledge and experiences will lead the students on their journey.
Can you imagine a world without teachers? What would it be like?