Day 144 of Steemit Education- Why Did I Choose to Educate and Teach People

I don’t teach in a school and never really have taught as a proper teacher in a school, I do believe I am my son’s very first teacher and I did home tutor a boy for about 1 year, so I think I can answer this question in the @steemiteducation homework for this week.

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There is no particular reason that I decided to teach someone. I had to be my son’s first guide and teacher because he is my son, my responsibility and my bundle of joy so it is only right for me to teach him different things and help him learn and grow. As for home tutoring a child, I wanted to earn some extra money when I was 20 so I decided to give tuitions to kids. That being said, there was one particular incident I experienced when I was in 8th grade that did compel me to teach a certain thing to everyone and anyone that I could help educate.

I clearly remember I was in 8th grade and had an English teacher who taught us the subject quite well, but she didn’t focus much on grooming us personally. I wasn’t always a chirpy, easy going girl but when I turned 12, I slowly let go of the unnecessary issues that held me back from being open, became more confident and turned into a person who was easy to be around. I loved having fun with my friends and was quite talkative too.

So one day, during my English class, I was being my usual chirpy self. I didn’t interrupt the teacher while she presented her lesson, but yeah when she asked to discuss something, I did talk a lot. The same teacher used to teach English to my sister’s class as well. My sister and I studied in the same school and she was in grade 7. My sister was a little different than me at that time and wasn’t as chirpy as I was.

My teacher noticed me talking a lot and asked me to be quiet. That did not offend me since it was her job to ensure everyone learns peacefully and that the class has a peaceful environment and maybe my giggles were interrupting the class so that’s alright. However, what did offend me was what she said next, ‘Sharoon, why cannot you keep quiet ever. You are always talking to someone and disturbing the class. Look at your sister, she is so nice and quiet and such an achiever. Why cannot you be more like her?’ These sentences still start ringing in my head whenever I recall that experience. While the first three sentences are fine because yeah maybe I was disturbing the class and yeah I do like my sister and she was nice and did great in her academics, it is the last sentence that disturbed me the most. She wanted me to be more like my sister whereas I was quite comfortable in my own skin.

Her comparison of me and my sister is exactly what perturbed me and made me think less of myself. If you have read any of my previous posts, you would know how I was always compared with my sister because she seemingly had nicer features and was fairer and skinnier than me. I was chubby, slightly dark skinned and had a broader nose than hers so was labelled as the not-so-pretty one. When my teacher compared me to my sister, all those bad memories of me being compared to her in different ways came rushing to my head and stressed me a lot.

I pondered a lot on her remarks and the more I thought, the more pressure I felt on my shoulders and mind to behave a certain way to fit in the society. Yes, I needed to be quieter in my class during the lessons, but I didn’t need to be excellent in academics to prove my worth or to be good. I also did not need to be quit all the time and not express my opinions to be happy. I know some of you may think of her remark as just a comment that should not be taken seriously, but I choose to disagree with it. Teachers are supposed to gudie and teach us and help us accept and discover ourselves, and not succumb to the pressures of the society. Also, it wasn’t just a comment she passed. Her attitude with me was quite weird too. Time and again, she used to remind me of how I am not as good as my sister, and how I needed to bring some serious changes to myself to become a better person and to be successful in life.

Sadly, success in our society especially the Pakistani one is associated with earning more, having a career that pays you a lot and conforming to all the norms of the society even if they are as irrational as things can get. So yeah, my teacher did think if I were to be successful, I needed to focus only on my studies and nothing else.

Her attitude is what encouraged me to preach acceptance and encourage everyone to be happy in their skin. I did not decide to bring about that change then, but that experience was certainly the driving force behind my decision to accept myself and then encourage others to do the same. So I decided if I ever did teach someone, I was going to be more accepting of that person and never compare him/ her with anyone. Comparing things, objects, ideas and sadly people too is something that comes easily to us. When we see two things, we don’t appreciate them for what they are and their uniqueness. Instead, we quickly reveal our judgments about the two and state the one we like better. This is fine since comparing things is what helps you understand your likes, interests, preferences, passions, dislikes and beliefs better. However, the same approach becomes unhealthy when you start comparing people. When you compare one person with another one you state your preferences and make the one you find fault or flaws in feel inferior to the other person you like better.

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Comparing people with others is what slowly forces them to do the same. Many people who have a habit to compare themselves and then their lives with other people do so because they have been taught to behave that way by the society. The society does not teach us to be accepting. Instead, it forces us one way or another to be people we are not and to live a life that we don’t really want from within.

So when I got an opportunity to teach kids, I tried my best not to compare them with others. This improved when I became a mommy and saw how the society and people around us kept forcing weird concepts and norms on my son. The saddest thing was that many of my loved ones did that. They however were not conscious of that because that had become engrained in their mind. Things like ‘Look at him, he is such a nice boy because he sits quietly’, ‘No, boys don’t cry aren’t you a brave boy?’ and other similar statements were constantly thrown at him and even though he didn’t get them properly when he was 2, but when things are said constantly, they become programmed into your subconscious and when something becomes imbedded into your subconscious, it starts affecting your thoughts, behavior and life.

So I made sure to block the negative effect of all such statements that came towards my son and teach him without comparing him with others. For instance, if I want him to make less noise or eat healthy, I don’t tell him to do it because his friends do it because they are nice and he isn’t. I talk to him about how eating healthy helps him get stronger and how making less noise when someone is asleep is a good thing to do and honestly this works.

Although thinking about that unpleasant experience with that teacher of mine still hurts me, I am not too sad about it anymore because now I feel it taught me to become more accepting of myself and others and teach others to become better at things without falling into the comparison trap.

What are your thoughts on the topic?

Until next time, love and light,

Sharoon.

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