I have been a teacher for more than a year now. To speak honestly, I never looked at teaching as a professional choice. I never wanted to enroll in any teachers’ training courses. This isn’t because I look down upon this profession or think of it being inferior than any other but because I have been aware of the fact that teaching and being a teacher runs in my blood and in my family. Most of my family members have been teachers at least once in their lifetime. Hence, I have always believed that I am a teacher by birth and do not necessarily require “training” to become one. No course can teach me how to handle young children when they become totally out of control, or how to introduce a new concept to students who have just started to explore the world around. It comes naturally when you stand in front of those 30-40 students. No exercises from a training program textbook could ever practically teach me how to handle the different ways and pace by which a student learns and grasps concepts inside the four walls of a classroom. Moreover, having been surrounded by teachers from various fields and subjects all my life, it wasn’t really something that would’ve required me to refer to books or recall training sessions. The moments I spent around the teachers in my family and the way the concept of teaching found its place in my life made it only a matter of time before I settled in.
After my graduation in Sociology Honours, I got married. My husband and in-laws convinced me to study a B.Ed. (Bachelor of Education) course. I got enrolled in an online batch as it was still the post- COVID era and things weren’t totally normal or as they used to be in academic institutions. The course taught me many things I hadn’t known before, including the various commissions established since the colonial era to shape and advance education policies. The course not at once lagged in teaching me the facts related to teaching and its history with regards to the measures taken for the development of free and fair education.
But what the course didn’t teach me was how to manage thirty students at once, or how to answer twelve different questions in a single minute. It didn’t show me what to do when a student throws tantrums, or how to respond when another rolls his eyes every time you try to correct his behavior. It never covered how to reply when the administration expects you to complete an unrealistic amount of work in an impossibly short time. It certainly never taught me how to say no. And unfortunately, these essential skills are taught nowhere.
I could only understand this fact once I decided to move out of the warm cocoon of my life and experiences and tried to step into the world outside of it. This was indeed a very challenging decision in itself for me, being a mother of a 1.5-year-old baby. But any how I wanted to create my own life. Where I start my day giving priority to myself. And this decision literally changed me forever. At first, I was overwhelmed, yet looked forward to another day of building myself up. Then was the time, I actually got a teaching training. When I stepped on to a ground level of teaching, I realized that for a teacher, having a degree isn’t enough, and neither is simply having the heart for teaching or coming from a family of teachers. What truly matters is, the patience, art of giving selective attention, and time management. These small yet complicated teachings cannot be found in any textbook for a training program but right in the syllabus of our lives. I learned it all only for my own betterment. And that’s when I realized how badly I needed this job, this chapter from life’s syllabus. Not solely for money but for relearning the things which I otherwise have thought that I do not require any assistance in. And to unlearn the things I otherwise believed as the truest in my knowledge.
“When I stepped on to a ground level of teaching, I realized that for a teacher, having a degree isn’t enough, and neither is simply having the heart for teaching or coming from a family of teachers. What truly matters is, the patience, art of giving selective attention, and time management. These small yet complicated teachings cannot be found in any textbook for a training program but right in the syllabus of our lives.”
I came to realize that society needs far more teachers than it currently has. Teaching is one of the few professions women often convince themselves to take up, usually for a very low salary which, I believe, is one of the main reasons so many of us are unable to do full justice to the work. In the next piece of this series, I would love to share the injustices I witnessed during my time in the profession.
