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!