with my Colleagues in the profession

with my Colleagues in the profession
after our pinning ceremony

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EDUCATION: Any act or experience that has a formative effect on mind, character or physical ability of an individual. In its technical sense, Education is the process by which society deliberately transmit its accumulated knowledge, skills and values from one generation to another.

Monday, January 10, 2011

THE BENEFITS OF TEACHING AS A PROFESSION AND A VOCATION

           Teaching is a noble and a prophetic job. There can be no better and greater joy or happiness for a devoted and dedicated teacher than to see his students learning more and more and improving their living standard. A good teacher derives inner happiness and immense satisfaction from his sincere and selfless service. He considers his job a great source of service to mankind. The radical improvement he brings in his students is his immediate source of pleasure and great satisfaction.
A good teacher always looks forward to improving his knowledge. The more he learns, the more he comes to know how much he does not know. His thirst for knowledge is unending and insatiable. His constant urge for learning more and more always keeps him happy and cheerful. The downpour of knowledge gladdens his heart and thrills his soul.
        Teachers enjoy good number of holidays or vacations to be benefited from them to gain more and more to enhance their knowledge and skills. They can also give a proper time for their family and meet their needs properly.
       A good teacher is a also a good and effective reformer. He uses his teaching as effective tool to help society avoid and stay away from destructive habits and satanic temptations. He motivates and inspires his students to be stronger to combat satanic and evil forces. He urges them to be useful and productive member of society and a good citizen of their respective countries.
Teaching has a lot of benefits. The most important benefit is job satisfaction. If a teacher finds appreciative, discerning and hard working students, he feels his labour is amply and effectively rewarded. This is what every good teacher craves for. But in order to reap all these benefits of this great profession, a teacher is supposed to be sincere, selfless, dedicated, hard working and dutiful.

A profession is a job which needs specialized training, and teaching is certainly that. A vocation is more all-encompassing; it is a calling, a way of life, and teaching is especially that. You are involved with your students not just during working hours but they become a part of your life for the ten months they are in your classroom. There are always a special few will remain in your memory and your heart for the rest of your life.
The salary is good. In the province of Ontario, where I taught, your pay rate increased as you gained years of experience. It also increased as you passed more courses, either professional courses or university credits. I often found that trying to juggle working, raising my own children, doing Homework for university, and trying to keep my house from looking like a disaster area, resulted in not being able to give my best to any of these tasks. I would strongly urge anyone thinking of entering the profession to get as much education as possible before you actually start teaching.
The holidays are good. There are about 180 actual teaching days each year. Single teachers find summer holidays are often useful for taking courses without distraction. Mothers of young children may opt to spend that time with their family for a few years. The choice is yours. For those with school-aged children, it is helpful to have weekends and holidays off with the family.
However, it must be remembered that teachers do a lot of work outside of school hours. Every evening, there is marking to be done. The children soon learn whether or not you check their work carefully. If you don't do so consistently, there will be a quick drop in the quality of assignments they hand in. Also, there are lessons and seat work activities to be prepared for the next day. I often spent two hours or more at the dining room table each evening. The advantage here, I guess, is that if you don't have an active social life, you won't miss it.
If it's near report card time, you might also be writing comments for one group each evening. I found that trying to do more than several at once, when I was tired to begin with, resulted in some that sounded as if they were composed in Loopy land, and I'd end up doing them over later.
Another advantage of being a teacher is that the job is so engrossing, you have to forget your personal problems while you're interacting with the children. That job eased me through a divorce, the deaths of both my parents, a second marriage and the adjustments thereof, menopause, and hundreds of other little ups and downs that we all face as we proceed through life.
For 5 1/2 hours a day, you are completely with the children, in the classroom. Human minds are not equipped to focus with two topics at the same time. The mornings and evenings may be hellish, but when that school bell rings, you're a teacher, composed and in command of the class. It's expected of you, and somehow, you always manage to measure up.
In later years, when one of your students becomes a doctor, a scientist, a leader in industry or distinguishes himself in some other way, you can smile with pride and say, "I taught him in Grade Three".
Is there any other profession or vocation which offers the potential for such satisfaction, or personal fulfillment?

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