Being a teacher

Being a teacher means taking a great responsibility as one does not work just with children’s minds, but with their hearts as well. Therefore the decision of becoming a teacher it is a serious one. Some people feel it is their duty to fight against illiteracy and ignorance, other began such preparation because they have always dreamed to become teachers, spread knowledge and constantly improve their own. There are few who were guided by the adults in their life when they had to choose a direction for their future.

NOTE: I am speaking about real teachers, I am not speaking about graduates that managed to squeeze in because of a faulty educational system. 

This profession is special, one can never stop improving. The preparation of a future serious teacher focuses on training people for life. Because being a teacher... I see it as a way of life. It is not an 8 hours job, it does not end when the students have left with their homework written in the notebooks. A teacher must be active in developing the community where he/she works. A teacher must know more than what is written in books and he must do more than repeat this information to the pupils, a teacher must train future adults for life, to prepare them both theoretically and practically. A teacher must encourage cultural expression, a healthy way of life and must act as a mediator whenever the situation requires it. A teacher must set an example of fairness and compassion. This is how I think, the schools for teachers should aim to prepare all the students that chose to dedicate their future to teaching the ones who know not.

This might just be one of the most difficult jobs in the world. I, myself, I could not do it. 

First, one must be constantly aware that he/she is influencing young minds that are at the border between becoming responsible grown-ups or permanently immature characters. 

Then, there is a terrible daily fight with the educational systems, mined by governments that prefer and also encourage ignorance. Ignorant are by far easier to deal with. One feeds them with soap operas, amputate their power to think for themselves and then manipulate them to one's interest. 

Third, a teacher must seldom or often do also the job of an immature parent. 

I stop here the counting of facts that challenge a teacher in the daily process of educating. 

I think we might learn something (positive or negative, DOs and DON'Ts) from any person we meet, but I do not think that everybody can be a teacher, an educator, some people are not more than an information bearer, like a sheet of paper with a printed text. 

But coming back to the REAL teachers, I find them extremely courageous. I bow in front of them, because they are standing like hard-stone walls against the transformation of the human race into a botanical species. 

Keep going!

Fair play

I know little about football. I like to watch a nice game and listen to a smart comment from a professional or even an amateur that understands better than me what happens out there on the field . However, for the past several years I found myself quite often under the impulse of pressing the MUTE key on the remote control. Even ignorant in what concerns training techniques or strategic games, I can easily spot cheap theater peformed by so called professionals of the above mentioned sport. And when a commentator praises such behavior just because it is on-trend to support a certain team... well that is just lame. Just as lame as criticising a trainer that can prove his value with titles, because he answers with arrogance to insipid, silly questions in press conferences. But there is something even worse than this and that is ignorant fans, the violent, misbehaved and rude, the kind that probably have never felt the joy of a well deserved victory because they were too busy spitting on the supporters of the other team. I hardly read sport newspapers anymore because they get me bored, the bussiness has reached such dimenssion that it is difficult to find veritable information in the middle of that grotesque show on paper. Coming back to ignorant fans, the latest example came from the bosnian fans that not only started to sing about Messi when Cristiano Ronaldo reached the building of the airport, but they have also pointed lasers to his eyes while he was on the field. First, this was a game between two national teams, there was no need to bring to the table the artificial conflict between Real Madrid/Cristiano and Barcelona/Messi that is nothing but a cheap engineering of the lousy mass-media factory. Second, many press organs are desperate to sell their products, do not fall into the trap, devouring the crap that lazy journalist that are too comfortamble to learn to write real, well documented stories are throwing towards all of us from their miserable offices. I have seen Cristiano playing live for the national team and just for the record, he was the first to come for the warm up, he took it seriously and was the last to leave the field. But that you will probably not read anywhere, instead you will read that he is not a humble person. I have no clue, but I am guessing that one that gets a generous pay cheque for being hard-working, efficient and productive might want to spoil himself at the end of a month with some extravagant thing that does not go further than the common sense imagination. So, to end this, I hope for fair play on the arenas, among the supporters and even in the media that could give these two guys a break and check how volleyball, gimnastics and other sports are doing.