Sunday May 16, 2010
When teaching grows on you
TEACHER TALK
By MALLIKA VASUGI
Sometimes we are thrust into a job that we may have no interest in, only to find that we begin to take a liking to it, over time.
THEY say that life turns out pretty much the way you choose it to be, and most of the time, we feel that it is true.
“The choice is yours,” they tell us.
“You alone can decide how you want to live.”
We hear these phrases almost all the time, in different variations perhaps, and usually we just nod in agreement even when we know that they have been glibly uttered by people whose most major decisions in life alternate between the choice of holiday destinations or designer handbags.
Still, we do know that being able to choose is by itself a gift, a symbol of free-will which lends dignity to the human state. But we also know that life doesn’t always give us the freedom to choose. That in itself may not necessarily be a bad thing, especially when you are not entirely sure about the choices you have to make.
Sometimes we rationalise that it is better to have the choices made for us, because if they turn out to be less than perfect, at least we are absolved from the guilt or responsibility of being the one who made the wrong choice.
It is also sometimes the almost-perfect excuse to use when we feel a lack of commitment towards a cause or a career, like teaching for example.
“We were not given a choice. We were thrust into it,” we often justify to whoever is within earshot. More often than not however, if we think about it enough, we know that the words are really an attempt to subdue the uneasy twinges of conscience that surface when you feel you’ve not performed according to what has been required of you.
With sufficient repetition, there comes a time when we may no longer feel any more twinges or pricking of conscience altogether, and hence there is no longer any need for any form of justification for the substandard work we present. Quite simply, we no longer see ourselves as what we should be against what we are.
“I became a teacher because I had no other choice. I wasn’t allowed to choose. My parents wanted me to become a teacher.”
We didn’t ask to be teachers so don’t blame us if we get it wrong, or even if we stop trying to get it right.
But, there are still many of us who have grown into our jobs even if we didn’t ask for it in the first place. Even if you don’t see them everywhere, there are countless teachers, who, despite having had their career choice made for them, have come to the happy discovery that they had really been called to teach.
An arranged marriage?
“It’s like the arranged marriages of long ago,” says one teacher, who in his own words “was dragged kicking and screaming into the teaching profession.”
“Think of our parents or grandparents. Some of them had never even seen the person whom they were going to spend the rest of their lives with. But most of the marriages worked, didn’t they? Compared to now? Love grows you know. Like teaching.”
It was the first time I had heard anyone compare teaching with a marriage. But it is true. Teaching does grow on you — but even that is a choice.
Perhaps that is why we sometimes have teachers in the same work-settings and pay-scales with completely opposing perspectives of their jobs.
There are those who remain because they know that teaching defines them — that it is what they do best and that they cannot imagine leaving when there are still so many students out there to impart an education to. And then there are those who have never allowed their position as teacher to reach anywhere deeper than the surface of their skin.
But there are times also that we all vacillate between the two extremes. There are moments when we feel so bonded to our job and to our students that we cannot conceive of how life would be like otherwise.
Then there are times when we question whether we have been too stupid or just plain cowardly for not wanting to take on something else like some others we know.
There are questions that flit through all our minds every once in a while. What could I have been doing if I were not doing this? Is the rest of my life going to be spent in some classroom, grading exercises and filling out senseless forms? How much do I really want to teach?
Then, quite unconsciously, we do a frustration level check. Are we frustrated enough to want to leave? Or is the genuine passion you have for teaching strong enough to transcend the boundaries of bad-mannered students, mismatched curriculum, or even chewing gum that gets stuck on to your shoes every day?
Do you come out of a class that had gone rather badly, breathing fire and vowing to yourself that you are going to – that very minute – call up your friend regarding that other job offer, and then completely disregard it when just one student comes up to you with a note saying that you are his favourite teacher?
But maybe it has nothing to do with frustration levels after all.
Perhaps you have reached the point in your career where you feel you really should be moving on. You have given your very best in your years as a teacher, enjoyed every step of the way, have absolutely no regrets about it, but now you just want to move on to something else. The choice is again yours, and no one else is able to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do with your life.
Sometimes, though, all it needs to make some of us to stay on is a little reaffirmation of our role as teachers.
To one who is not a teacher, it may seem like a dismal state of affairs or even come across as pathetic. But to us who have grown into teaching after having either made the conscious choice or having the choice thrust upon us, the significance of our role is indisputable.
We know who we are and what we do. And if our fire is fuelled by a few seemingly feeble words of affirmation from the unlikely bunch of students we teach, so be it.
It is after all, we, who among many other professions in the world, who have the privilege of being able to say:
“Hey, I taught this kid his multiplication tables”, “I showed him how to write a letter to his grandfather”, “I taught him how to play badminton”,
“I told him what a good job he did as a monitor”, “I allowed him to believe in himself”, and “I touched his life.”
Happy Teachers Day.
No comments:
Post a Comment