"Teaching keeps me alive, not because it helps me earn my daily bread but it keeps my soul alive," I typed as my status keeping in mind the upcoming teachers day. I didn't plan or browse through quotes online to set that status, it just emerged from my heart as a true statement. I always tell my students that twenty years down the line, when they become ministers or hold other important posts, I'll still be a teacher, gray and old but a teacher. My students find it funny and they laugh, I join them and laugh with them but silently I laugh at them for they will never know the depth of truth that lies in my simple statement.
I was in class ten, Sir Chuni had come to our school for his teaching practice. He wanted a volunteer from our class to do a presentation on the first paragraph of FIRST KING: SIR UGYEN WANGCHUK chapter. I raised my hand for I guess I liked doing such stuff. After I completed my presentation, he made the whole class applaud and said, "You are going to make a fine teacher one day." Maybe, the applause and the statement was just a technique used as reinforcement to make his lesson plan a complete package. But unknown to even myself I had begun my journey into the world of teaching.
Like any other Bhutanese kid, I talked about becoming a doctor or engineer, but after that comment by our history teacher, I knew I would become a teacher and in his words, "Fine teacher" for that.So that was the first reason I wanted to become a teacher. Even as a student I was a fine teacher.
During my apprentice period, it was like a new adventure, the crazy fear of entering class seven's classroom; feeling dizzy while stepping in class eight but when I went to the cute li'l ones in class four, I saw the love I knew would come to me in this profession. The admiration I saw in my class four students filled me with strong determination to do well and go ahead with this plan for my career. Reason number two I love this profession is 'cause one has to work with kids, and kids are always better to deal with than the adults. Kids and their innocent world will never taint your world.
My first year of actually being a teacher propelled me deeper into the love for this profession. I learnt that teaching isn't only about going to the class and teaching the prescribed textbooks. There was a boy, detested by almost all the teachers in the school, for he did drugs and all the other things that a "Bad Boy" labelled student does. I don't know why but I felt that this boy, who bunked his classes and turned deaf ear to all the warnings would actually listen to me. By mid-term, he attended my classes regularly, and one day he sang a song with my name in it. Standing coyly near me, he announced,"Our madam is my mother and I made this song for you,dear mother." Nobody saw the tears glistening in my eyes but he saw it and just like my words made an impact in his heart, his tuneless song caught my heart.That year I learnt the satisfaction of being able to make a difference in smebody's life. I understood the anecdote of a man picking up the starfishes on.a hot beach, even I remember laughing with the other man who asks him,'how will you save all these fishes? what difference will it make?" But the man picks up another starfish and before tossing him back to the sea, answers,'it makes a difference to this li'l one." I ventured into this career not hoping to mold every sttudent in my class but the change I could bring in this boy gave me my line,"it made a difference to this li'l one."This is reason number three, you can make a difference in somebody's life, no matter how small your contribution.
Seven years in this line has made me see various shade of this profession. Just recently I was chatting with one of my student who is now in a college in India and he was like, "madam, you are the coolest teacher I have ever met in my life." I laughed aloud. I started my career with a boy calling me 'a mother' and seven years later another boy says,I am cool. Wow! aging backwards! and its possible only with this profession. I agree totally to the adage a teacher never grows old. I know I'll never grow old for each year I'll grow younger with my students. Sounds funny but true all the same.This is reason number five, I'm never growing old, which woma wouldn't want tis magic formula for remaining young forever.
When I'm in th class I feel like a person in trance, I forget all my problems and I'm like a person who has never had sorrow or problems touch her finger. This is reason number six, it hides me from my negative world.
I complain a lot in the evenings when I reach home. I complain about having to stand whole day, chalk dust making my throat hoarse, endless co-curricular activities but hiding behind all these complains lies a smug feeling of accomplished dreams no other job can give me.
But most important of all, when I look back I sometimes feel that I could have become a totally different person leaning heavily into the frail emotions we humans are capable of falling into, but the thought that I AM A TEACHER has always kept me away from such negative influences making its imprint in my life.
THIS IS WHY I WANT TO REMAIN A TEACHER FOREVER.
I was in class ten, Sir Chuni had come to our school for his teaching practice. He wanted a volunteer from our class to do a presentation on the first paragraph of FIRST KING: SIR UGYEN WANGCHUK chapter. I raised my hand for I guess I liked doing such stuff. After I completed my presentation, he made the whole class applaud and said, "You are going to make a fine teacher one day." Maybe, the applause and the statement was just a technique used as reinforcement to make his lesson plan a complete package. But unknown to even myself I had begun my journey into the world of teaching.
Like any other Bhutanese kid, I talked about becoming a doctor or engineer, but after that comment by our history teacher, I knew I would become a teacher and in his words, "Fine teacher" for that.So that was the first reason I wanted to become a teacher. Even as a student I was a fine teacher.
During my apprentice period, it was like a new adventure, the crazy fear of entering class seven's classroom; feeling dizzy while stepping in class eight but when I went to the cute li'l ones in class four, I saw the love I knew would come to me in this profession. The admiration I saw in my class four students filled me with strong determination to do well and go ahead with this plan for my career. Reason number two I love this profession is 'cause one has to work with kids, and kids are always better to deal with than the adults. Kids and their innocent world will never taint your world.
My first year of actually being a teacher propelled me deeper into the love for this profession. I learnt that teaching isn't only about going to the class and teaching the prescribed textbooks. There was a boy, detested by almost all the teachers in the school, for he did drugs and all the other things that a "Bad Boy" labelled student does. I don't know why but I felt that this boy, who bunked his classes and turned deaf ear to all the warnings would actually listen to me. By mid-term, he attended my classes regularly, and one day he sang a song with my name in it. Standing coyly near me, he announced,"Our madam is my mother and I made this song for you,dear mother." Nobody saw the tears glistening in my eyes but he saw it and just like my words made an impact in his heart, his tuneless song caught my heart.That year I learnt the satisfaction of being able to make a difference in smebody's life. I understood the anecdote of a man picking up the starfishes on.a hot beach, even I remember laughing with the other man who asks him,'how will you save all these fishes? what difference will it make?" But the man picks up another starfish and before tossing him back to the sea, answers,'it makes a difference to this li'l one." I ventured into this career not hoping to mold every sttudent in my class but the change I could bring in this boy gave me my line,"it made a difference to this li'l one."This is reason number three, you can make a difference in somebody's life, no matter how small your contribution.
Seven years in this line has made me see various shade of this profession. Just recently I was chatting with one of my student who is now in a college in India and he was like, "madam, you are the coolest teacher I have ever met in my life." I laughed aloud. I started my career with a boy calling me 'a mother' and seven years later another boy says,I am cool. Wow! aging backwards! and its possible only with this profession. I agree totally to the adage a teacher never grows old. I know I'll never grow old for each year I'll grow younger with my students. Sounds funny but true all the same.This is reason number five, I'm never growing old, which woma wouldn't want tis magic formula for remaining young forever.
When I'm in th class I feel like a person in trance, I forget all my problems and I'm like a person who has never had sorrow or problems touch her finger. This is reason number six, it hides me from my negative world.
I complain a lot in the evenings when I reach home. I complain about having to stand whole day, chalk dust making my throat hoarse, endless co-curricular activities but hiding behind all these complains lies a smug feeling of accomplished dreams no other job can give me.
But most important of all, when I look back I sometimes feel that I could have become a totally different person leaning heavily into the frail emotions we humans are capable of falling into, but the thought that I AM A TEACHER has always kept me away from such negative influences making its imprint in my life.
THIS IS WHY I WANT TO REMAIN A TEACHER FOREVER.
