Some introspection on the purpose of your job can do a world of good.
Priyanka Gupta
People entering the teaching profession have different reasons for picking it. However, the focus has to be the student. Whatever one’s reasons to become a teacher, be it an income, respect from society or any other, one cannot forget that they are ultimately responsible for a young, impressionable mind and that they can have a lasting impact on it.
Most teachers, while clear about what they teach, may not always be clear about why they teach. Understand your audience – the students, in this case – and understand that teaching children, not subjects, is the objective.
Why teach
Teachers should be fuelled by passion and driven by purpose. Clarity on the purpose of our effort is the most critical. It has to be student-oriented. The underlying purpose/principle/moral of the lesson has to be clear, at the end of the exercise.
It is important that teachers teach to ensure that education confers not just lessons, but wisdom, knowledge and awareness, the ability to differentiate between right and wrong,
the ability to make decisions with good judgment and conduct oneself and treat others with dignity and respect.
Irrespective of the profession one chooses, we ultimately want our efforts to show the results we are seeking. When we speak of teaching, the value of our hard work is directly proportional to the good we are able to do for our students.
Who are we teaching?
As a teacher are you just teaching a bunch of students and carrying on in class after class
without giving a thought to whether each student is benefiting from your practices, or are you really taking every child’s need into consideration and working accordingly?
Teachers should have a clear understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of every student in the class. This will help engage with them and carry them along in the process of teaching. When we talk about ‘who’ and ‘why’ in this process of education, students are the beneficiaries and their learnings are the benefits. Teachers should focus on the beneficiary and their benefits. This is the only way to do justice to the noble profession that teaching is. Anything that a teacher does which does not benefit the students’ growth is not in sync with the purpose of this job.
At the end, in our moments of introspection “why we do something” is more important than “what we do”. If your answers about your actions justify your questions and the purpose of teaching, you’re winning at it.
