Doing it by vocation

What it takes to teach

🏷️ Categories: Learning, Life lessons.

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There are people who change your life without knowing they did it.

Among those people, those who educated us. Your teacher, your professor, they watch us grow, guide us and teach us to see the world in a way we never imagined. During childhood and adolescence, crucial phases of development, we spend almost as much time at school as we do with our parents.

Imagine how decisive they are.

Interestingly, they don't see a tangible result in their work. The result will take years to come. They are farmers of the future: they spend their lives fertilizing soil without knowing what will become of the future of those students, without perhaps ever seeing the fruit of their hard work.

And as with everything else, you have to be good at it. Educating is much more than reading a book aloud.

It is not easy to be an inspirational figure who captivates by speaking, who transmits.

Incredibly, I see that the authority of the teacher has lost value.

Despite their work, the standard for being a teacher is dangerously underestimated. I have heard many phrases like: “If you don't know what to do, study teaching” or “That's for people who only want to be civil servants and work little”. What blindness... Behind every class there are hours of preparation, evaluation, meetings and concerns for students who need something more than a simple explanation out loud.

As if educating were an inferior option, a plan B for those who do not know what to do.

These comments are a symptom of the little value given to this profession.

Have you also heard phrases like that?

The result is clear: people who, guided by these phrases, choose teaching without a vocation, just to study something. And although it is possible to be a good professional without having a vocation, the truth is that it rarely happens. What tends to emerge instead is reluctance and making teaching a formality to earn a salary and nothing more.

I have had admirable, brilliant teachers.

What a change just to change teachers.

Another example. In philosophy, I had a professor who was so charismatic that we all looked forward to his class. He would grab us from the first minute and turned something that is usually seen as boring, into something fascinating. He awakened my interest in philosophy.

Plato said that one learns by playing, and so it was, his classes were enjoyable, a joy.

While for many people philosophy is something tedious, for me and my classmates it was the best class of the day without a doubt, it was the time to listen attentively and learn to debate and argue in public. We loved it.

Notice how decisive the figure of the teacher is.

Why is this not seen?

Why has the figure of the person who educates the people of tomorrow lost its value?

I perceive that the teacher's authority has been weakened in the face of students and their parents, who now have more power to question their pedagogical methods and decisions. Before, the teacher's word was unquestionable and his or her judgment was trusted, but today more parents criticize teachers in front of their children.

I think this distrust happens towards all authorities, not just teachers.

What do you think?

This makes the work of educating impossible, because educating requires the collaboration of the other.

You cannot educate those who do not want to be educated, those who do not respect others.

For all this, I want to encourage you to make a small gesture if you have the opportunity.

Think about that teacher who changed your life, that teacher who was essential to your maturity. Maybe you never knew it. Maybe you didn't even know it until years later. If you have the opportunity, reach out to that person and if you meet them on the street, approach them. Tell them who you are and thank them. For a teacher, this is the greatest recognition, to know that his or her sowing, invisible for years, paid off in the end.

I have done it several times, and every time I do it, I feel that a cycle closes.

In that instant, they know that their work had value. As the philosopher Thomas Aquinas said, gratitude goes with justice. And so it is, a just person is grateful, because he knows how to recognize the work of those who gave him his education.

Before being a brilliant student, one must be a brilliant person.

Ethical values come before grades.

✍️ It's your turn: Do you think the figure of the teacher has changed today? Is there a crisis of authority? That's the feeling I get.

💭 Quote of the day: “Only the educated will be free” Epictetus.

See you next time, hugs! 👋