Teaching is more than a profession

Teaching is more than a profession, it is a vocation.

Teaching is one of the most important jobs in society. Teachers form and shape the minds of future generations. How we are taught affects our attitude to learning for our entire lives. A good teacher can instil a love of learning in children, engaging them by making learning fun. Children today have been born in a digital age so we can no longer deliver analogue teaching. As a child I was fortunate to have teachers that made learning fun. I can still remember geography class at our primary school when our teacher took us on a journey on the Orient Express, travelling across Europe to Istanbul. We made passports which had a different country on each page. There were no expensive resources available as it was just a small village school. The teacher used her descriptive language to paint the picture of what we would see outside the carriage windows and would have our chairs lined up as if on a train. She would play music on an old gramophone such as Strauss’s Viennese Waltz as we came through the Black Forest into Vienna. I still remember that the Danube went through four countries, and that Budapest is separated by the Danube with Buda on one side and Pest on the other. This made the geography come to life for us and cost nothing apart from the teachers’ enthusiasm, time and innovation to make the learning experience fun. My teacher gave me the best start possible to my lifelong learning journey which will never end. I continue to learn new things every day - I learn a lot from my students as I try to pass forward the love of learning to the next generation.

A profession is a paid occupation, especially one that involves prolonged training and a formal qualification. Whereas a vocation is when a person's occupation is regarded as particularly worthy and requires great dedication. Being a teacher requires both prolonged, ongoing training and great dedication. Unfortunately, teaching is not always seen as requiring either of these qualities. In countries with the best education systems, which inspire the future generations to become independent learners with confidence to aspire and achieve their full potential (whatever that may be); there is fierce competition and high expectations for potential teachers. This competition leads to candidates of high calibre with the skills and emotional intelligence to become top class teachers. Standards are in place to ensure that teachers’ professional development is continually improved in line with worldwide educational research findings along with technological and cultural changes.

Teaching is a transitional craft and requires teachers to be reflective practitioners that want to continually develop their methods and techniques.

All students have different needs, in order to teach equally it requires each student’s needs to be identified and met to ensure that they achieve their full potential, regardless of their learning style, cultural background, wealth status and ability. This takes time and requires a variety of assessments including speaking to students on a one to one basis. The poem at the top of the page about the ‘teacher making a fuss because the student has no pencil’ is a reminder that it is important to understand the child as a whole person. Teachers need to treat children with compassion and care regardless of whether they are ‘likeable’. Often children that prove difficult in the classroom are the ones that need some additional support. The bad behaviour can reflect an insecurity and lack of understanding of a concept. If a child is absent when a new concept is introduced, this will cause ongoing problems and needs to be addressed with additional help and support. If a teacher has passion and wants all of the students to achieve their full potential - whatever that may be - the students see and feel this passion and it serves to inspire their motivation to try to perform well to their teachers’ expectation of them, by working hard.

Written by: Gillian Thompson