Why do I choose teaching?
For
some, teaching is a family tradition, a craft that one naturally masters and a
world that surrounds one from childhood. Teaching can be a way of sharing
power, of convincing people to value what one values, or to explore the world
with oneself or through oneself. I choose teaching because I want to enjoy
being with young people and watching them grow.
I
want to be teacher to protect and nurture people younger than themselves, young
people who have every likelihood of being damaged during their school years.
Everyone
who goes into teaching, even temporarily, has many reasons for choosing to
spend five hours a day with young people. These reasons are often unarticulated
and more complex than one imagines. Yet they have significant effects on
everyday work with students and on the satisfaction and strength the teacher
gets from that work. Consequently, it makes sense if one is thinking of
becoming a teacher, to begin questioning oneself and understanding what one
expects from teaching and what one is willing to give to the profession.
I
choose this profession not because school was awful, or because one was
damaged, or because one needs a job and working as a teacher is more respectable
then working as a cab driver or salesperson.
What
does one know that she/he can teach or share with his/her students? Too many
young people coming out of college believe that they do not know anything worth
sharing, or at least feel they haven't learned anything valuable during their
training. Teacher training usually doesn't help since it concentrates on “teaching
skills” rather than the content of what might be learned.
It
takes years to learn how to teach well, and even then one never learns once and
for all. Teaching is not like driving a car or adding a column of figures. Each
group of students one works with has different needs and present new
challenges. Like any craft, one learns teaching by practicing it and by finding
models, other teachers whose practices one admires and can study.
