Ever since I can remember, I have been teaching. And in between my teaching periods…. I teach myself.
It might be nature which made me this way: My mother is a teacher, my aunt is a teacher, my father used to teach and my great grandfather started molding young minds at an early age of 12. And now this noblest of all profession gripped my siblings and my cousins as a barnacle would… my brother works as a college professor, my sister juggles motherhood with teaching computer to children and almost every family in our genealogical branch has sprouted a teacher.
So, why teach? Why choose a profession which practically almost everybody can do? Why waste your talents on the drudgery of everyday teaching routines?
The answer is simple, really. Why not teach? If you can have all the talents in the world…., or have a lot of possibilities in store…. or can even outshine Rigel, one of the brightest stars in the universe… WHY DON”T YOU TEACH? Why be contented in harnessing your potentials to uplift your life when you can very well use it to encourage others?
Fifteen years. It was just more than two decades ago when I started to serve as a professional teacher… but the rewards are slowly but are meaningfully pouring in… basically in the guise of the thank you notes, graduation invitations, electronic mails, text messages or the spontaneous hug and excitement I see on their faces whenever I meet them across the street.
But those are just bonuses. The real perks of being a teacher manifest in the knowledge that everyday is not a routine, really. Each day is a new opportunity to impart knowledge… to learn from the idealistic and simple views of children who profess they know something about life… to grow as a person, and yes, to borrow from one of my student’s (Alyssa Gonzales’) words:
“In teaching others, I learn to teach myself.”
