Teachers

I am a teacher.I had teachers. I worked with teachers. I met with my children's teachers.

To teach is to love your students.Teachers training taught us a minute part of teaching ompare with all that a teacher need to do in school. Many things were not touched  upon but is essential to us.Class room control, paperwork, balancing accounts, handling parents, handling disciple and much more.So how do we go about it? or rather how do we survive in the school. We look for example, we learn from our mistakes but basically, we must love to teach.. Teaching has no glamour. Forget about grateful students and only one in a million might have a coffee table book written about them in their golden years Teach because you love and that is all.No buts and no ifs. Just as parents were never trains to be one, we do all we did out of love for our children.I believe it is the same for teaching.

So where do we draw the line on teachers' duties and not our duties as teachers?I was one of those who wished that I was just allowed to teach and educate with a big full stop. Looking back,I realised that

• while  I pull the weeds with the students on gotong royong day, I had a chance to work with them, hear them and understand them.
• on a trip with them, I learn what make them laugh and what they enjoy and hates about school.
• as I disciple them, I was reminded that some are so poor that they have to work after school.
• when I collect fees and fill in the particulars in the register, I get to know more about their background  and where they came from.
• as I sit down with the kids and just listen to them, I learn so much about them. I understand their behaviour and thoughts.I see their point of view

and all these helps me to educate them. Among other things

• I learn that they need respect as much as we do young as they are and even if they are discipline cases.
• They accept punishments better when they see why they were wrong.
• They are more tolerant when they know why certain rules are made(and this is so true with parents)
• A lecturer shares knowledge but a teacher educates
• A school do not judge and punish but should discipline and mould 

If I am asked today, I would not say that there are many things that are not a teacher's duty but rather, please give us more loving teachers so that we can share all that we need to do as teachers so that we can be better educators.