Teaching is a privilege

I write this as a form of add on or a different point of view towards the article by @leemeili who spoke of the need for the negative perception towards teachers to stop. As we will be both speaking from the same context but Steemit being an international platform, I think I should offer some background with regards to the teaching profession from where I am from.

Teaching for many years in my country has been known as a 'last resort profession'. That means that if you are not able to pursue your dream career, you should pursue teaching. It is a very secure profession whereby the likelihood of being terminated is rather low. Thus, many would abuse the privilege of being a teacher and this has led to a rather negative perception towards teachers. There are many who see teachers as lazy, incompetent and are irrelevant in this current day and age.

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However, I have a different point of view on the situation and would like to relate a few personal experiences on this:

We do not get paid overtime

No, I am not complaining. However, technically my job ends at 4.30 pm. That being said, there are times when I do get a phone call at 10 pm and your student needs your help sending them to a clinic. The things is, this student has no relatives nearby and so as the teacher, I drive the student to the hospital and wait.

There was also the time when I was training my team for a inter-school tournament and we practiced till 12 am. No one would do it, so it had to be done. The only pay that I have received at the end is a thank you from my students. But you see, the thank you does mean a lot. We as teachers do spend a lot of time with our students and at the end of the day, if we can model how we should treat one another and the student learns from it, applies it and impacts another person positively, I dare say that the extra hours was well worth it.

We have to smile even if we do not feel like it

Imagine this with me. I wake up in the morning, I find that my car would not start because a drunk driver decided that his car and my car were lovers and kissed my car with his a little too hard. So, with a car that was damaged and being late for class, naturally it would be right to call in sick.

There's just the issue of replacing the class and so I tough it out, go to school and start my class with a smile. That is because how you act dictates the atmosphere of the class. So I will be happy in class, worried in the office, sad to see the bill for the repairs and exhausted at the end of the day. This did happen, but my point is before anyone does blame a teacher for not doing a good job, do consider the stress and pressure a teacher is under. However, we are not perfect and we do have our flaws.

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Staying relevant

I have tried explaining from the textbooks many times and I find it puts many of my students to sleep. I explained what recycling is and none of them understood it. As such, I divided my class by gender I addressed the boys first. I asked do you play DOTA?Most of them said yes and I said recycling is when you take an item bought in DOTA and break it down to its individual components to build other items. The boys immediately understood the concept and I turned to the girls.

Twilight was the hottest thing around at that time and I said, Edward was with Bella and later dumped Bella. When Bella was dumped, Jacob became her new boyfriend. Bella was recycled. It was as if a light bulb turned on in their minds and that was how I explained recycling by staying relevant. I know, to my DOTA and Twilight fans, those were poor explanations, but it got the message across.

Unfortunately, it is an aspect that some teachers I know do not pursue and thus they find it difficult to relate to their students.

Conclusion

I write this for the teachers of my country and those out there who think that you do not matter. You do very much matter, stay strong and fight on. As my 7th year of teaching winds to a close, it has been a fun seven years teaching students from the age of 5 to 45 years old. It has been an awesome ride and I hope my stories will inspire those who are teaching to continue on doing their best.

I hope you enjoyed the stories, do let me know your thoughts in the comments below. Also, if you have an inspiring story to share about your teaching experiences or a teacher, do let me know!

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